Christopher Hager began his career in literary studies as an undergraduate at Stanford, where he studied modern and contemporary American fiction under the late novelist and critic Gilbert Sorrentino.  As a graduate student, he concentrated on 19th-century American literature in relation to slavery and the Civil War.  His training in these areas guides his pedagogical goals: By teaching students to read all texts with the careful attention to form and language that modern and postmodern literature demand, he aims to make them more astute and powerful thinkers about literature in its cultural and historical context—especially the context of race and social inequality in the United States.  At Trinity, Professor Hager teaches American literature from 1865-1945.  He is at work on a book manuscript that engages with an infrequently studied body of literature: letters and diaries by formerly enslaved African Americans who acquired literacy during the era of emancipation.