Discs 1-2, lectures 1-12. Introduction
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography: the first American story
Washington Irving: the first American storyteller
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Yesterday: America's coming of age
Emerson today: architect of American values
Emerson tomorrow: deconstructing culture and self
Henry David Thoreau: countercultural hero
Thoreau: stylist and humorist extraordinaire
Walden: yesterday, today, tomorrow
Poe's legacy: the self as "Haunted palace."
Discs 3-4, lectures 13-24. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the American past
The Scarlet Letter: Puritan romance
Hawthorne's "A": interpretation and semiosis
The Scarlet Letter: political tract or psychological study?
Hawthorne our contemporary
Herman Melville and the making of Moby-Dick
The biggest fish story of them all
Moby-Dick: tragedy of perspective
Melville's "Benito Cereno": American (mis)adventure at sea
"Benito Cereno": theater of power, or power of theater?
Walt Whitman: the American bard appears.
Discs 5-6, lectures 25-36. Whitman: poet of the body
Whitman: poet of the city
Uncle Tom's cabin: the unread classic
Stowe's representation of slavery
Freedom and art in Uncle Tom's cabin
Emily Dickinson: in and out of nature
Dickinson's poetry: language and consciousness
Dickinson: devotee of death
Dickinson: "Amherst's Madame de Sade"
Discs 7-8, lectures 37-48. The adventures of Tom Sawyer: American paradise regained
Huckleberry Finn: the banned classic
Huckleberry Finn: A child's voice, a child's vision
Huckleberry Finn, American orphan
Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: black and white charade
Henry James and the novel of perception
The turn of the screw: do you believe in ghosts?
Turning the screw of interpretation
Stephen Crane and the literature of War
The red badge of courage: brave new world
Stephen Crane: scientist of human behavior
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: war against patriarchy.
Discs 9-10, lectures 49-60. "The yellow wallpaper": descent into hell or free at last?
Robert Frost and the spirit of New England
Robert Frost: "At home in the metaphor"
Robert Frost and the fruits of the earth
T.S. Eliot: unloved modern classic
T.S. Eliot: "The waste land" and beyond
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: American romance
The Great Gatsby: a story of lost illusions?
Fitzgerald's triumph: writing the American dream
Ernest Hemingway's The sun also rises: novel of the lost generation
The sun also rises: spiritual quest
Ernest Hemingway: wordsmith.
Discs 11-12, lectures 61-72. Hemingway's The Garden of Eden: female desire unleashed
The Garden of Eden: combat zone
William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury: the idiot's tale
The Sound and the Fury: failed rites of passage
The Sound and the Fury: signifying nothing?
Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!: Civil War epic
Absalom, Absalom!: the language of love
Absalom, Absalom!: the overpass to love
The Grapes of Wrath: American saga
John Steinbeck: poet of the little man
The Grapes of Wrath: reconceiving self and family
Invisible Man: black bildungsroman.
Discs 13-14, lectures 73-84. Invisible man: reconceiving history and race
Invisible Man: "What did I do to be so black and blue?"
Eugene O'Neill: great god of American theater
Long day's journey into night: there's no place like home
Tennessee Williams: managing libido
A streetcar named Desire: the death of romance
Death of a salesman: death of an ethos?
Death of a salesman: tragedy of the American dream
Toni Morrison's Beloved: dismembering and remembering
Beloved: a story of "thick love"
Beloved: Morrison's writing of the body
