The theme around which this particular Clarkson Seminar is structured is the interplay between the sacred and the profane in American literature. We will read closely and critically texts that exhibit varying degrees of religious or secular overlay, from narratives suffused with religious symbolism and motifs to the spiritual void expressed by Modernism. American literature and culture have their roots in the sacred, but contemporary fiction and society are predominantly secular. In this course we will explore the sacred and the profane through literary texts associated with one or the other, or both, of these domains. Though at times we might describe these two spheres as what Stephen Jay Gould dubbed (speaking of religion and science) non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), the pattern in literature and society is frequently one of great overlap between the sacred and the profane. Though we will begin our readings in the nineteenth century—when literary allusions to scripture far outpaced those to other texts, and when the most read book in America was The Bible—we will focus primarily on twentieth-century American literature.
Professor: Dr. Michael Garcia