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CS92PROD
American Literature on Fire: Conquest, Capitalism, Resistance: 1492-1865
ENGL 203A
Fall 2023 not offered
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 formerly enslaved persons 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 and subversions 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). Along the way, we will draw on Howard Zinn's classic A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES to help historicize the Americanization of inequality. 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). And, not least of all, we will have critical fun throughout.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (ENGL)(ENGL-Literature)

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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