Major Authors: Melville and Morrison
This MIT OpenCourseWare seminar pairs Herman Melville and Toni Morrison for close, sustained reading rather than survey coverage. Texts include Melville's Typee, Moby-Dick, and The Confidence-Man alongside Morrison's Sula, Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise, chosen for their shared interest in American identity, language, and nationhood. The course materials include a syllabus, reading schedule, and assignment prompts drawn from MIT's actual class, built around a small number of works studied in depth rather than broad survey. Students are expected to draw on materials in different media and produce creative research, writing, and multimedia projects rather than conventional essays alone. There is no certificate; MIT OpenCourseWare provides the syllabus, readings list, and assignments free for self-study, though it does not include video lectures. The focus stays on close literary analysis of two authors known for dense, innovative prose.