Heading out: the literary and journalistic documentary tradition of social observation: the call to venture outside of what we know, and attend the stories of others. Featured: James Agee, George Orwell, and William Carlos Williams

When strangers meet: meeting so-called ordinary American working-class men and women: courage, challenge, kindness and complexity in everyday living. Featured: the old ones of New Mexico, Raymond Carver, Edward Hopper, Tillie Olsen, and Ruby Bridges

A storytelling humanity: ways of seeing race and identity: encounters through the eyes of another. Featured: Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor

Bringing it home: intellectuals and the religious search: finding meaning in the life given to us. Featured: Dorothy Day, Ignazio Silone, Elie Wiesel, John Cheever, Walker Percy, Zora Neale Hurston, and a potato chip truck

Boundaries, borders, and breakthroughs: finding simple clarity amidst moral, psychological and social complexity. Featured: Paul Gauguin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and George Eliot

Afterword: history of a course

A reading list for life: the syllabus from "A literature of social reflection".