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Welcome to our course blog!

UMBC students in ENGL 332 have spent the Fall 2019 semester examining how writers and artists portray ‘America’ and the ‘American Dream’ from the 1930s onward. Looking at texts across a wide range of mediums, including poetry, short fiction, novels, and film, we analyzed multiple, contesting visions of the American Dream and how they intersect with questions of socioeconomic mobility, democratic inclusion, freedom, and equality. We also explored how the American Dream can assume various, nightmarish forms.

For their final course project, students have taken on the challenge of investigating a specific contemporary American Dream and/or Nightmare inspired by a current events piece. Our blog site reflects a diverse range of critical, methodological, and creative approaches. Some students make a case for how a specific literary or cultural text captures an American Dream/Nightmare of the twenty-first century while others have chosen to produce their own representation of a contemporary American Dream/Nightmare. We hope that our blog will contribute to and diversify the knowledge production around contemporary American literatures and cultures and speak to both specialized and general audiences. Click on the tabs in the side menu to explore the various projects that students in ENGL 332 have developed.