How did writers and audiences in late Victorian England and America explore the idea of a hidden or double self? In what ways did representations of this self speak to changing understandings of sexuality, gender, and class?
What was the literary context in which American Renaissance writers wrote and published? How did now-canonical writers respond to popular literary forms?
What literature was published and read during the Civil War? How did literature help make sense of the war and the profound changes it brought to the nation?
How did Twain’s Huckleberry Finn engage and challenge popular ideas about slavery and race in nineteenth-century America? Can a text be offensive and still be worth reading?
What arguments did eighteenth-century writers make about the slave trade? How are these arguments based in understandings of African civilization? How does Olaudah Equiano contribute to these debates?
What is the context for Shakespeare’s Roman plays? What were his sources? Why did classical Rome capture the interest of people in Renaissance England?
What is the historical and literary context for Shakespeare’s representation of Prospero’s island and its inhabitants? How did Renaissance writers and artists portray the European exploration of the Americas? How did that exploration inspire their visions of an ideal society?
