Reading Outside the Lines (Lectures in American History Series)

Reading Outside the Lines: Paratext in Landmark American Literature

This presentation provides an overview of the concept of "paratext" in literature generally and highlights
specific texts throughout American history which made significant contributions to the literary space, impacted
American social life, and/or both. We'll start in revolutionary America with the groundbreaking story of Phillis
Wheatley before moving our way to the Civil War Era with Harriet Beecher Stowe and Walt Whitman. Later
we'll take a look at The Negro Motorist's Green Book's complicated relationship with African Americans in the
Jim Crow south and finally arrive at highlights from contemporary literature of the last 40 years.

Presented by Andrew Martin