Gangster Fiction: Rise of an American Antihero

This four-week course explores the American gangster novel as a distinctive literary genre that reveals the complexity of American identity, ambition, and moral drive. Centered on W. R. Burnett’s Little Caesar (1929), one of the foundational texts of gangster fiction, the course examines how fictional gangsters emerge as uniquely American antiheroes—figures who are admired and condemned, charismatic and isolated. Through close reading and literary analysis, students will explore characterization, narrative structure, language, religious symbolism, and public persona, while situating the gangster within broader cultural conversations about power, masculinity, and immigration. Designed for multiple ways of engaging with literature, the course offers tracks in academic analysis, book-club discussion, and creative reflection, treating gangster fiction not as a static genre but as a living form that continues to shape how we understand ambition, identity, and storytelling in American culture.