English 697, Comparative Literature 715  Definitions of America W 12:30-3:10 Clemens 436

This course will attempt an exercise in synthesis. We shall read, within their reciprocal cultural contexts, several writings that help to define, create, or revise our national cultures, both the discourse of nationalism and what Julia Kristeva calls the discourses of "nations without nationalism." We shall attend to their interactions with other cultures, with conversations among them, and with the ways in which they are both representative (participating in the cultural conversations of their times and ours) and hermeneutic (affording practice and instruction in the arts of interpretation). Ecocriticism, feminism, ecofeminism, trauma theory, rhetorical hermeneutics, literary anthropology, cultural criticism, post-analytic philosophy, postmodern ethics, and any other theories we find useful will inform our discussions of these texts but will not replace them.

Each student will do one seminar report (12-16 minutes), and each student taking the seminar intensively (for full credit) will also do one research essay (8-24 pages, due 25 March) on a topic of his or her own choosing. This essay should use the format for parenthetical documentation suggested in The MLA Style Manual (or in the new edition, the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, due in spring, 1998, if that edition is available well before the due date of the research essay).

Texts:

William Andrews, ed., Classic American Autobiographies (Mentor, Penguin) [contains Rowlandson, Franklin, Douglass, and Zitkala-Sa]

Susanna Haswell Rowson, Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth, ed. Cathy N. Davidson (Oxford)

Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (Signet)

James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans (Signet)

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie; or Early Times in the Massachusetts (Rutgers UP)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales, ed. James McIntosh (Norton Critical Edition)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Stephen E. Whicher (Riverside, Houghton Mifflin)

Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Larry J. Reynolds (Norton Critical Edition)

Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 2d ed., ed. William Rossi (Norton Critical Edition)

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels (Signet)

Though you may, of course, acquire them where you please, these texts are available at the University Bookstore. They are all paperbacks. You may want to buy them soon, since my texts tend to sell out quickly.

Syllabus

January

21 introduction, handouts, choice of seminar report topics

28 Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration (1682) in Andrews; Rowson, Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth (1791, Britain; 1794, America) 120 pages

February

4 Rowson continued; Franklin, Autobiography (written 1771-90, first edition [in a French translation] 1791, first American edition 1818) in Andrews

11 Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-1820), esp. "The Author's Account of Himself," "The Voyage," "Rip Van Winkle," and "the Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

18 Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (1826) 415 pages

25 Sedgwick, Hope Leslie; or Early Times in the Massachusetts

(1827) 365 pages

March

4 Hawthorne, "Roger Malvin's Burial" (1831), "My Kinsman, Major

Molineux" (1831), "The Gentle Boy" (1831), "The Gray Champion" (1835), "Young Goodman Brown" (1835)

11 Spring Recess

18 Hawthorne, "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" (1836), "The Minister's Black Veil" (1835), "Endicott and the Red Cross" (1837), "Main-street" (1849)

25 Research Essay Due (8-24 pages); Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836), "The American Scholar" (31 August 1837), "The Divinity School Address" (1838), "Self-Reliance" (1841), "Circles" (1841), "The Poet" (1843), "Experience" (1844)

April

1 Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) 104 pages

8 Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (1845) in Andrews

15 Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854) 223 pages

22 James, Daisy Miller: A Study (1878) 59 pages, The Turn of the Screw (1898) 112 pages

29 Zitkala-Sa, Four Autobiographical Narratives (1900-1902) in Andrews

For students taking the course intensively, evaluation will be based on seminar discussion (25%), seminar report (25%) and research essay (50%). For those taking the course extensively, evaluation will be based on seminar discussion (50%) and seminar report (50%).