American Dream: Using Storytelling to Explore Social Class in the United States
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this anthropology course on how Americans at different points on the class spectrum understand and experience their position in society. Readings draw on classic sociological frameworks for analyzing class alongside memoirs, novels, and ethnographies that render class as lived experience rather than abstract category, examining how it intersects with race and gender. Materials include the full syllabus, weekly reading assignments, and writing prompts used to structure class discussion, all freely downloadable. The course does not include video lectures but provides a complete reading list and assignment sequence developed for an MIT undergraduate seminar. No certificate is offered, consistent with MIT OpenCourseWare's model of publishing course materials for independent study.