Frederick Douglass writes of Hugh Auld, his master while in Baltimore:

I was now getting…one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it,--not because he had any hand in earning it,--not because I owed it to him,--nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same.

Why does Douglass get the notion that he earned the money? That he is "owed" it? That Master Hugh's taking money from him is an act of piracy? The answer is that Douglass has learned the language of the American market. So Douglass’s Narrative is about his desire to be free to join the free market and to earn money for himself just as it is about his desire to escape the illogical, inhumane, and hypocritical system of slavery.

And why not? Literature registers cultural phenomena, and what could be more culturally ingrained than the business by which we all sustain our livelihood? That is to say, we shouldn’t be surprised that literature is often about business. Thus, this course will investigate novels, plays, and poems that prominently feature business, businesspeople, and commerce (or interactions in the marketplace). It will appeal to business and economics students interested in alternative perspectives on their discipline(s) or in cultural representations of their discipline(s), as well as to other students curious about the interdisciplinary exchange between English and business.

We will ask what role the market plays in the formation of narrative and thematics, what influence the language of commerce has in our conceptions of character(s), how the forces of business (help) determine the behavior of characters, and how characters might imagine resisting the attraction of the market. Further, we will consider what other kinds of exchange this literature suggests might be modeled on the commerce of finance capitalism. And we will seek to answer the question of why business seems to be so influential in this literature. But also, we will question whether causality can run the other way: (how) does literature affect the market?

Readings
Potential readings for this course include the following:
• The Financier, Theodore Dreiser
• “Bartleby,” Herman Melville
• Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
• The Pit, Frank Norris
• “Goblin Market,” Christina Rossetti
• The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
• “Economy,” from Walden, Henry David Thoreau
• The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

Coursework
Students will write three 5–7 page papers, two of which will have graded first and second submissions. Additionally, eight 300 word response papers will serve as springboards for class discussion and will be graded exclusively on the basis of content and effort. The breakdown is as follows:

Papers 1.1 & 2.1 :: 10% each
Papers 1.2 & 2.2 :: 20% each
Paper 3 :: 20%
Response papers :: 15%