123427 SE Literary & Cultural Studies Seminar / BA Paper / MA American/North American Lit./Studies (2016S)

From prairie settlement in the early 19th to boomtown metropolis in the course of the 20th century, Chicago's rich literary and cultural history has reflected changing concepts of urbanity and society in the U.S. Although by no means exhaustive in terms of subject matter and literary texts, this course aims at looking at the 'windy city'; from a diachronic perspective, focusing on decisive moments in Chicago literature and culture from the late 19th century to the 21st: the Haymarket Riots (1886) and labor activism, Jane Addams' Hull House and Progressive Era Chicago, the Columbian World Exposition (1903), the Great Migration of African Americans from the South and the development of the Blues and the Chicago Renaissance, the Prohibition era, and the development of a multiethnic urban literature.