Studies in Fiction: Rethinking the American Masterpiece
American literary classics get reconsidered through unexpected contexts in this MIT OpenCourseWare course. Rather than treating novels like Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as fixed monuments, the course places each in a surprising historical, cultural, or critical frame to test what makes them endure or resist easy canonization. Moby-Dick is introduced as a book often called the greatest novel almost nobody actually reads, and the course uses that reputation as a way into questions about audience, reception, and literary value. Materials include the syllabus, reading assignments, and discussion prompts drawn from MIT's undergraduate literature curriculum. The course is free to access under MIT OpenCourseWare's open license, with no certificate offered. It suits readers who want a structured, discussion-driven return to familiar texts rather than a survey of new ones.