Philip Roth was a central and controversial figure in American fiction for over fifty years. He subsequently published over twenty novels in a variety of modes, from the satirical to the experimental to the historical. In his American trilogy, the scope of his fiction expanded to produce a portrait of post-war America as riven, from the McCarthy era to the Clinton impeachment, by the conflict between the quest for purity (political, sexual, ethnic, and racial) and “life in all its shameless impurity.” This course surveys his career from the earliest short fiction to the end of the last century. Roth delighted in provoking his readers and students to be prepared to be offended by his treatment of women, Jews and people of color.