Texts:
- Frank Norris – The Octopus
- W.E.B. Du Bois – The Quest of the Silver Fleece
- James Weldon Johnson – The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man
- Nella Larsen – Passing
- James T. Farrell – Judgment Day
- Don DeLillo - Cosmopolis
- Richard Powers – Gain
Secondary readings will include selections by J. Hillis Miller, Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Jean- Francois Lyotard, E.P. Thompson, and others