Part 1. Lecture 1: Introduction -- Lecture 2: Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography: the first American story -- Lecture 3: Washington Irving: the first American storyteller -- Lecture 4: Ralph Waldo Emerson's yesterday: America's coming of age -- Lecture 5: Emerson today: architect of American values -- Lecture 6: Emerson tomorrow: deconstructing culture and self -- Lecture 7: Henry David Thoreau: countercultural hero -- Lecture 8: Thoreau: stylist and humorist extraordinaire -- Lecture 9: Walden: yesterday, today, tomorrow -- Lecture 10: Edgar Allan Poe: Poete Maudit -- Lecture 11: Edgar Allan Poe: ghost writer -- Lecture 12: Poe's legacy: the self as "Haunted Palace" --

Part 2. Lecture 13: Nathaniel Hawthorne and the American past -- Lecture 14: The Scarlet letter: Puritan romance -- Lecture 15: Hawthorne's "A": interpretation and semiosis -- Lecture 16: The Scarlet letter: political tract or psychological study? -- Lecture 17: Hawthorne our contemporary -- Lecture 18: Herman Melville and the making of Moby-Dick -- Lecture 19: The biggest fish story of them all -- Lecture 20: Ahab and the white whale -- Lecture 21: Moby-Dick: tragedy of perspective -- Lecture 22: Melville's "Benito Cereno": American (mis)adventure at sea -- Lecture 23: "Benito Cereno": theater of power, or power of theater? -- Lecture 24: Walt Whitman: the American bard appears --

Part 3. Lecture 25: Whitman: poet of the body -- Lecture 26: Whitman: poet of the city -- Lecture 27: Whitman: poet of death -- Lecture 28: The Whitman legacy -- Lecture 29: Uncle Tom's cabin: the unread classic -- Lecture 30: Stowe's representation of slavery -- Lecture 31: Freedom and art in Uncle Tom's cabin -- Lecture 32: Emily Dickinson: in and out of nature -- Lecture 33: Dickinson's poetry: language and consciousness -- Lecture 34: Dickinson: devotee of death -- Lecture 35: Dickinson: "Amherst's Madame de Sade" -- Lecture 36: Dickinson's legacy --

Part 4. Lecture 37: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: American paradise regained -- Lecture 38: Huckleberry Finn: the banned classic -- Lecture 39: Huckleberry Finn: a child's voice, a child's vision -- Lecture 40: Huckleberry Finn, American orphan -- Lecture 41: Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: black and white charade -- Lecture 42: Henry James and the novel of perception -- Lecture 43: The Turn of the screw: do you believe in ghosts? -- Lecture 44: Turning the screw of interpretation -- Lecture 45: Stephen Crane and the literature of war -- Lecture 46: The Red badge of courage: brave new world -- Lecture 47: Stephen Crane: scientist of human behavior -- Lecture 48: Charlotte Perkins Gilman: war against patriarchy --

Part 5. Lecture 49: "The Yellow Wallpaper": descent into hell or free at last? -- Lecture 50: Robert Frost and the spirit of New England -- Lecture 51: Robert Frost: "At home in the metaphor" -- Lecture 52: Robert Frost and the fruits of the earth -- Lecture 53: T.S. Eliot: unloved modern classic -- Lecture 54: T.S. Eliot: "The Waste Land" and beyond -- Lecture 55: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: American romance -- Lecture 56: The Great Gatsby: a story of lost illusions? -- Lecture 57: Fitzgerald's triumph: writing the American dream -- Lecture 58: Ernest Hemingway's The Sun also rises: novel of the lost generation -- Lecture 59: The Sun also rises: spiritual quest -- Lecture 60: Ernest Hemingway: wordsmith --

Part 6. Lecture 61: Hemingway's The Garden of Eden: female desire unleashed -- Lecture 62: The Garden of Eden: combat zone -- Lecture 63: William Faulkner's The Sound and the fury: the idiot's tale -- Lecture 64: The Sound and the fury: failed rites of passage -- Lecture 65: The Sound and the fury: signifying nothing? -- Lecture 66: Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!: Civil War epic -- Lecture 67: Absalom, Absalom!: the languages of love -- Lecture 68: Absalom, Absalom!: the overpass to love -- Lecture 69: The Grapes of wrath: American saga -- Lecture 70: John Steinbeck: poet of the little man -- Lecture 71: The Grapes of wrath: reconceiving self and family -- Lecture 72: Invisible man: black bildungsroman --

Part 7. Lecture 73: Invisible man: reconceiving history and race -- Lecture 74: Invisible man: "What did I do to be so black and blue?" -- Lecture 75: Eugene O'Neill: great god of American theater -- Lecture 76: Long day's journey into night: there's no place like home -- Lecture 77: Tennessee Williams: managing libido -- Lecture 78: A Street named Desire: the death of romance -- Lecture 79: Death of salesman: death of an ethos? -- Lecture 80: Death of salesman: tragedy of the American dream -- Lecture 81: Toni Morrison's Beloved: dismembering and remembering -- Lecture 82: Beloved: a story of "thick love" -- Lecture 83: Beloved: Morrison's writing of the body -- Lecture 84: Conclusion.