American Literature on Fire: Conquest, Capitalism, Resistance: 1492-1865
ENGL 203A
Fall 2021 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
AMST 243A |
We begin with a 1938 Langston Hughes poem, a north star shining light on American unexceptionalism and then move back in time: from Columbus's dismemberment and enslavement of the Arawaks when demanding gold; to Cabeza de Vaca's feel-good handbook for the conquest of indigenous peoples; to Puritan inventions of a "God" that pulls the trigger; to Franklin's blowing the whistle on a mercantile capitalism he supercharged with a secular work ethic; to a Declaration of "Independence" in 1776 that provoked alternative declarations written by workers, women, and ex-slaves in the 19th century; to Poe's readings of a Divided States of America (race, gender, domesticity) as gothic; to Douglass's representations of the tactical artfulness of slave culture; to Hawthorne's deconstruction of the Americanization of power; to Thoreau's entwining of collective protest and what he hoped would be an individualized escape route; to Melville's attacks on imperialism, racism, and class domination; to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's critique of domestic slavery; to Stowe's socially transformative antislavery novel (whose sentimentalization recirculated stereotypes). During our literary-intellectual time travel, we will engage some of America's most "on fire" writers who make possible insights into the ideological foundations of American cultures, identities, and hegemonies that provocatively illuminate America's situation today (and offer some lessons for how to change it). |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENGL)(ENGL-Literature) |
Major Readings:
--Langston Hughes, ""LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN"" (1938)
--Christopher Columbus, DIARIES (1490s)
--Cabeza de Vaca, LA RELACIÓN (1542)
--John Winthrop, ""A MODELL OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY"" (1630)
--Captain John Underhill, ""NEWES FROM AMERICA"" (1636)
--Mary Rowlandson, . . . NARRATIVE OF THE CAPTIVITY AND RESTAURATION OF MRS. MARY ROWLANDSON (1682)
--Jonathan Edwards, ""SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD"" (1741) and other 1740s texts
--Benjamin Franklin, ""THE WAY TO WEALTH"" (1757), AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1770s-80s)
--Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, ""The Declaration of Independence"" (1776)
--""The Working Man's Declaration of Independence"" (1829)
--David Walker, ""WALKER'S APPEAL TO THE COLORED CITIZENS OF THE WORLD"" (1830)
--Edgar Allan Poe, ""BERENICE"" (1835), ""THE BLACK CAT"" (1843)
--Lydia Sigourney, ""THE FATHER"" (1834)
--""Declaration of Independence of the Producing from the Non-Producing Class"" (1844)
--Women's Rights Convention (Seneca Falls, NY), ""Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions"" (1848)
--Frederick Douglass, NARRATIVE . . . AN AMERICAN SLAVE (1845), """"THE MEANING OF JULY FOURTH FOR THE NEGRO"" (1852)
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, ""THE BIRTH-MARK"" (1843), THE SCARLET LETTER (1850)
--Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, ""THE ANGEL OVER THE RIGHT SHOULDER"" (1852)
--Harriet Beecher Stowe, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (1851-52)
--Herman Melville, ""BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER: A STORY OF WALL STREET"" (1853), ""BENITO CERENO"" (1854), ""POOR MAN'S PUDDING AND RICH MAN'S CRUMBS"" (1854)
--Henry David Thoreau, ""CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE"" (1849), WALDEN (1854),
--Walt Whitman, from LEAVES OF GRASS (1855)
--Harriet Jacobs, from INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL (1861)
--Emily Dickinson, poems (1840s-70s)
--""Negro Declaration of Independence"" (1876)
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Examinations and Assignments:
Three five-page interconnected essays that will form a portfolio. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course fulfills the Literary History 2 requirement and contributes to the American Literature requirement of the English major. |
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