Some of you like to get a jump on your upcoming semester readings prior to the start of a semester, I know. That’s often a good idea, and you should feel free to email any professor ahead of time to ask for the syllabus or at least a few reading suggestions. If you don’t know the email for any particular professor you can email me at cloots@mercy.edu and I’ll help you out. For those in my American Renaissance course this coming spring I do suggest that you get into some of the readings ahead of time, if you have time, as it will be a rather reading-heavy course. Moby-Dick will be the last thing we read, but as it is very long it’s not a bad idea to read it ahead of time. We’ll also be reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and selections from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We’ll also probably study The Scarlet Letter though many of you might have already read that a number of times in the past. We’ll be reading some essays and shorter works as well.

The book order will be Moby-Dick (ISBN 0393972836) and The Norton Anthology of American Lit. 8th Ed. Volume B (ISBN 0393934772), which contains everything I’ve listed here other than Moby Dick.  Norton has put together a special combo pack for our class with a distinct ISBN which, I believe, you can only get through our college bookstore. The ISBN is 978-0-393-91665-2. It was supposed to be a special deal but our bookstore has priced it up so that it costs about the same as if you bought both books separately. You can probably find used and even new copies of these for cheap from places like Alibris.