American Literature
MIT OpenCourseWare's survey of American literature since the early nineteenth century traces how novels, essays, and poems have tried to define national identity. Readings typically draw from Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson, and Toni Morrison, spanning transcendentalist essays, slave narratives, and modern fiction. The course materials include the syllabus, reading lists, and assignment prompts used in MIT's undergraduate literature curriculum, structured around close reading and discussion of how these texts wrestle with questions of nationhood, individualism, and identity. As with other MIT OpenCourseWare offerings, the materials are free to use for self-study, though there is no instructor interaction or certificate. It suits readers wanting a structured path through canonical American writing rather than a casual survey, with enough primary texts to sustain a full semester of study.