Attendance policy: You are expected to attend every scheduled class meeting but are permitted one free cut without comment or penalty. More than one absence jeopardizes your status in the course. If you continue to cut or miss, drop the course. Even with medical or other emergency excuses, high numbers of absences or partial absences will result in a lower or failing course grade.

Reading & Presentation Schedule, spring 2012

(fall 2010 syllabus ) (Link to 2002 syllabus)

No Required Textbooks--all texts are online

Sacagawea, 1788-1812 Effigy Mounds, Iowa

Discussion Questions: Which America do we learn or teach? Dominant culture / Western Civilization, or Multicultural? What advantages to each? Can formal or close reading bridge differences?

Jefferson Nickel Monticello

The Renaissance (1400s-1600+)

early European Exploration and Settlement

19c Print of Columbus landing in New World

1992 Chicano student demontration at U. of Wisconsin (re 500-year commemoration of Columbus)

European Renaissance Music

Native American Music

Blake, Creation of Eve

Discussion Questions: Intertextuality: What resemblances b/w Columbus & Genesis? With Handsome Lake? About "Creation Stories," what advantages to one story vs. many stories? How is each creation / origin story unique to its culture? How does it create a culture? What literary qualities or pleasures do you find in these texts? Which America do we teach?

Turtle Island

Discussion Questions: How are the stories of Smith and Cabeza de Vaca like or unlike later fiction? Rip Van Winkle appears 200 years later as the early United States' first successful classic fiction. How is it like or unlike the historical narratives of Smith and Cabeza de Vaca? terms: novel; genres; fantasy What different attitudes toward racial mixing emerge from North America and Latin America? Term: Mestizo Since Cabeza de Vaca describes our Gulf Coast region, how do you see it differently through his time and eyes?

Seventeenth Century (1600s)

Religious Reformation as Warfare & Exaltation

Matthias Grunewald (1470-1528), Crucifixion (1502) and Resurrection (1506-15)

Stained Glass portrait of Anne Bradstreet in St. Botolph’s Church, Boston, England

Discussion Questions: How do the Puritans either express attitudes that preview democracy, or describe or imagine utopias or perfect worlds? How may New England still represent a "utopian community" in American thought or culture? What's changed? What are the costs of utopian thinking? What kind of behavior is disallowed? As lyric poems, Bradstreet's writings appear "timeless." But how do they reach across the centuries? To what do they connect? What parts don't connect? How does Hawthorne's fiction transform Bradford's report on Merry-Mount (ch. 19)? How does Hawthorne's use of the Gothic build on Puritan styles? Why do readers think Hawthorne (1804-64) is even earlier than he is? How does Hawthorne fit our idea of an author compared to Bradford or Winthrop? Why is Hawthorne considered a “great author?”

John Winthrop (1587-1649) Hawthorne (1804-64)

later illustration for Rowlandson's book

Discussion Questions: Rowlandson, b. 1637, is part of the Puritans' second generation in America, and Mather the third generation. (Jonathan Edwards [23 Feb] will be 4th generation.) How do their situations and tones differ from first, "utopian" generation of the Puritan immigrants? Rowlandson writes the first "captivity narrative"--a popular genre in American literature. What are the genre's attractions? Continuing discussion of fiction & history, how does it anticipate fiction or the romance? How do Rowlandson's stylings anticipate "the gothic," especially descriptions of Indians and the wilderness? How do Rowlandson's stylings of Indians correspond to our stylings of terrorists? As a woman writer, how do Rowlandson's concerns and style compare to Anne Bradstreet? What are the opportunities for women's writing in early and later New England? Mather (1663-1728) and the Salem Witch Trials occur in Puritans' third generation--what has changed for God's chosen people in America? Why do we remember the Salem Witch Trials and little else about the Puritans? If we don't believe in witchcraft then or now, what's going on in this trial? See objective 6 re "biblical narratives" as an interpretation of American history. How does Rowlandson interpret both her experience and the Indians' in terms of a Christian allegory?

Cotton Mather (1663-1728)

The Enlightenment or Age of Reason
& the Scientific Revolution

(late 1600s-late 1700s)

Transition from the 1600s to 1700s, from Religion / Revelation to Enlightenment / Reason

Jefferson Memorial, Washington D.C. (Neo-Classical Style of Architecture)

John James Audubon (1785-1851) Gyrfalcons

^examples of Neo-Classical or Enlightenment art^

Discussion Questions: Above all, compare and contrast Franklin and Edwards, born only 3 years apart but very different paths in writing style and personae / public profile. Which author or text seems most "literary" to present standards? What implications to your choice? Edwards: How is Edwards "the Last Puritan?" What has changed? How does he follow earlier Puritan generations? Why is Sinners the "most famous sermon ever?" Why do readers remember it? Why does it matter now, whether we share its religion or not? How does Edwards's Personal Narrative & note on Sarah Pierrepont show a different side to religion? Identify elements of the gothic and sublime. (Compare to Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative?) Franklin: In contrast to Edwards as "the Last Puritan," how does Franklin represent the new Enlightenment generation that founds the USA? What aspects are more or less attractive or admirable?

Thomas Jefferson

Discussion Questions: Compare / contrast Enlightenment writings on religion with Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. What's at stake in the debate over the Founders' religion? How would this count as a Creation / Origin Story? Consider values, heroes, traditions, change, gender roles. What is the Enlightenment style? Its attractions and detractions? (Irony?) The eighteenth century is most Literature students' least favorite period of study, yet its writings establish our political and economic institutions. What does this conflict between usefulness and entertainment tell us about literary study and what counts as literature?

Abigail Adams

Thursday, 8 March: midterm & research plan, in-class or email

Thursday, 15 March: spring holidays

First Research Post Due 22-29 March

Thursday, 22 March: Constitutional Government Readings: review Mayflower Compact & A Model of Christian Charity (2 Feb) The Great Law of Peace (Iroquois / Haudenosaunee); The Cherokee Memorials The Declaration of Independence (and its echoes) + Texas Declaration of Independence Abigail & John Adams's letters on America's new government U.S. Constitution, Articles of Confederation,   Instructor Presentation: selections from The Federalist Papers Student Presentations Reading Discussion Leader(s): Veronica Ramirez; instructor Reading Discussion Leader(s): Rachel Harris (Adams' letters) Web review: The Trail of Tears  Web Reviewer: Ryan

Agenda: midterms, research posts UHCL Writing Center assignments Hammon poem; American Religion compare / contrast Puritan texts texts: Veronica assignments (>Kayla, Diego) Great Law Cherokees: Ryan The Federalist

Andrew Jackson, U.S. Pres. 1828-36

Discussion Questions: What upsides / downsides to reading such texts as literature? What parts of texts come alive and why? Using process of elimination, if these texts don't count as literature, what does? What responsibilities do or don't become ours if these are or aren't literature?

Trail of Tears

First Research Post Due 22-29 March

Thursday, 29 March: Who's in and out of the Enlightenment State? John Woolman, selections from The Journal (1753, 1762) on The Quaker Page Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative . . . (1789; first slave narrative; review chs 1-3 from 26 Jan. & complete selections) Samson Occom, A Short Narrative of my Life (1768) Reading Discussion Leader(s): Diego Gutierrez (Occom); Kayla Riggs (Equiano) Poem: Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought From Africa to America" Poetry Reader: Melissa Lopez Poem: Phillis Wheatley, "On Imagination" Poetry Reader: Instructor  Instructor presents:  The Quaker Page

Agenda Posts, semester, assignments Multiculturalism > LITR 4332 & 4333 Equiano as African American Origin Story Wheatley: Melissa Equiano: Kayla  Wheatley: instructor [break] Occom: Diego  Quakers Woolman

Olaudah Equiano

Discussion Questions: In both Equiano and Occom, note the connections between religion and literacy. How does Equiano's writing in both style and content resemble the Founders and the Enlightenment. What qualities separate it from the Puritan style? Equiano shows slavery as horrifying, but in contrast to most later, Romantic slave narratives, he mostly advocates its reform rather than its abolition. How is this attitude representative of Enlightenment thinking? Contrast Romanticism. Americans who feel defensive about slavery often point to existence of slavery in Africa. What differences? Why do most Literature majors like reading works such as those by Equiano or Occom more than texts by the Founders? Reading Woolman's Journal is like reading the life of a saint. What pleasures or rewards? What benefits and risks of reading moral or pious literature in public schools? What kinds of moral quandaries does Woolman face that prevent simple yes-no moralism? [43] How does Woolman differ from the Enlightenment?

Jonathan Edwards

Early Romanticism (late 1700s-early 1800s)

17th Century > Enlightenment > Romanticism

Thursday, 5 April: Peace, Change, Great Awakenings + begin Women's Romance Readings: Sermon Selections of George Whitefield The Great Awakening & The Second Great Awakening John Adams, letter on southern preaching Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (1782) Charlotte Temple (read half of Volume One) Student Presentations  Reading Discussion Leader(s): instructor Web review: "Classical" Classical Music (Enlightenment) Web Reviewer: Ryan Instructor presents:  Enlightenment / Romantic visual art

Agenda: schedule, assignments Great Awakening, Adams, Whitefield Ryan: classical classical music Enlightenment art [break] Crevecoeur Charlotte Temple

Susanna Rowson (1762-1824) author of Charlotte Temple

Overall question: How are thought, literature, and religion turning from the Enlightenment to Romanticism? What continuities or differences? Whitefield: After the Constitution's separation of church and state, where does religion relocate? What aspects of Whitefield's appeal are potentially Romantic or contrary to Romanticism? What features of Whitefield's sermons are familiar even today? (Contrast Puritanism, whose religion often seems alien to modern audiences.) John Adams: How is "southern preaching" representative of the Great Awakening? Crevecoeur: How is "the American" a new person or American identity created by the Melting Pot? What contrasts to other cultures? Relate to American Exceptionalism How are African American slaves excluded from the Melting Pot? How is Crevecoeur's attitude toward American Indians "Romantic?" Charlotte Temple: What balance is struck between "instruction" and "entertainment?" ; Why was Charlotte Temple so popular? What pleasure may be found in the story? What instruction, moral, or lesson(s) does the novel offer? How  does the text contradict itself? That is, telling you a moral while showing its violation?

George Whitefield (1714-70)

Thursday, 12 April: complete Women's Romance Readings: Charlotte Temple (complete) Thomas Jefferson, letter on women's education & novels begin Edgar Huntly (chapter 1); term: gothic; novel; fiction; defamiliarization Student Presentations  Reading Discussion Leader(s): Christi English All students have a passage from Charlotte Temple for question, comment Web review: Romantic Music  Web Reviewer: Chasity Keulemans Instructor presents:  Enlightenment / Romantic visual art

Agenda: final exam fiction & novel Charlotte Temple: Christi Jefferson Romantic music: Chasity Romantic art gothic > Edgar Huntly

Susanna Rowson (1762-1824) author of Charlotte Temple

Discussion Questions: Continue to compare / contrast Romanticism with the 17th Century and Enlightenment--what continuities or differences? Charlotte Temple: For past generations, Charlotte Temple would likely have been excluded from a Literature course on account of its sentimentality and its appeal to popular tastes or habits of thought. What is gained from reading such a novel in terms of women's writing, the romance genre, cultural studies, popular culture, early American history? By reading an early work of fiction like Charlotte Temple, what do you learn about the style of fiction you take for granted now? Compare / contrast Charlotte Temple as a sentimental romance novel with Edgar Huntly as a gothic romance novel. Continue questions on Charlotte Temple from previous class.

Second Research Post Due 19-26 April

Charles Brockden Brown

Discussion Questions: What are the identifying features of a novel? How is the rise of novels compatible with the rise of Romanticism? Examples of the gothic and sublime? How is the gothic attached to the American wilderness rather than gothic castles, etc.? What is the significance of the gothic? Why does it keep returning? How does it keep working? Edgar Huntly was never popular like Charlotte Temple. Why not? What distinctions between popular and classic literature? How can both be classified as Romantic (or occasionally anti-Romantic)? Edgar Huntly is the first serious American attempt at serious or literary fiction. What does he get right and wrong? What can you learn about fiction from his successes and errors? What do you want more or less of? If these are "bad novels," what do you learn about what makes good fiction? What balance is struck between "instruction" and "entertainment?"

gothic forest

Second Research Post Due 19-26 April

Thursday, 26 April: conclude Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly Readings: Edgar Huntly (complete) Student Presentations Reading Discussion Leader(s): Adam Glasgow Poem: Freneau, "The Indian Burying-Ground" (How does Romanticism change American attitude toward Native American Indians? Compare Mary Rowlandson , A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration?) Poetry Reader: Nora Haenggi

Agenda: research posts Elizabeth, Lauren exam periods, Romanticism, gothic, sublime Novel: Adam break / evaluations Poem: Nora

Discussion Questions: Does Edgar Huntly come to any satisfying end or resolution? What pleasure and instruction? Can reading and studying such a book as Edgar Huntly be rationalized or justified? Examples of the gothic and sublime? How is the gothic attached to the American wilderness rather than gothic castles, etc.? Edgar Huntly was never popular like Charlotte Temple. Why not? What distinctions between popular and classic literature? How much can it be distinguished as sentimental and gothic? Edgar Huntly is the first serious American attempt at serious or literary fiction. What does he get right and wrong? What can you learn about fiction from his successes and errors? What do you want more or less of? What is the significance of the gothic? Why does it keep returning? How does it keep working? What in us responds to the gothic? How does the gothic respond to the Enlightenment? How do Edgar & Clithero qualify as doppelgangers or twins? Examples of such twinning elsewhere in gothic literature? A captivity narrative is inserted, now a fictional genre.

Thursday, 3 May: final exam

Course Objectives

Content

1. To learn about early North American and U.S.texts and cultures and make them matter now.

 2. To read and interpret "Creation Stories" and "Origin Stories" of America

• Native American origin stories

• The Pilgrim or Puritan Fathers (& Mothers) of New England

• Founding Fathers (& Mothers)

• Mexican American story of Guadalupe

• Genesis and Evolution

To explore the related concepts of utopia, decline, and apocalypse (or end-times)

3. Emergence of “Literature” as we know it today from earlier genres like letters, pamphlets, public documents; spoken and written literatures and cultures

4. To reconcile the "Culture Wars" over which America is the real America?--To ask hard questions without simple or final answers. (Our answers evolve with our world.)

• Which America to teach?

  • "Founding" by "great white fathers" or multicultural voices of African America, Native America, Spanish and French colonization, women, and others?

  • To acknowledge “heroes, villains, and victims” but also cross-cultural, intertextual, evolutionary, and other stories

• Is America a religious nation peculiarly blessed by God or a secular state with religious people peculiarly devoted to materialist lifestyles?

• Is American government a strong, centralized national state or union, or is it a confederation of state and local governments with prevailing rights?

• Can there be a community of individuals?

• Is America in decline or making progress?

5. To gain literary and cultural knowledge of historical periods & attempt trans-historical unity:

• Renaissance / Age of Exploration (1500s)

• Seventeenth Century: Religious Reformation and Warfare (1600s)

• Enlightenment, Age of Reason (late 1600s-late 1700s)

• Romanticism (late 1700s-1800s) (continues in LITR 4232 American Renaissance, spring 2012)

6. Can American history tell a single story? Trans-historical unity? Options:

• Providential history: from "fate / destiny" to Biblical narratives, incl. models for secular story-telling

• Evolution as continuity + change

• Ongoing transition: tradition > modernity [>reaction: retrenchment & revival]

• "Big ideas" or concepts for deep past: utopias,

Cross-cultural strategies

syncretism

Mestizo identity

intertextuality

Critical Theory / Critical Thinking

Close reading or formalism: attention to language and its mechanisms

Textuality & Intertextuality—not reading “one text at a time” but how texts create a network of shared meaning

Death of the Author: empowering readers, opposing autobiographical interpretations and "what the author meant to say"

Historicism: reading past literature in its historical context and ours

• What aspects of the past do we relate to and why? If we don't relate, what can we learn from difference?

• What is historical and what is timeless? If “timeless,” what is the connection between them and us?

• How can we think of the past? What are mental powers of storytelling and limits to inclusion?

• “History in their own words”—and not, say, in the language of a modern textbook

• American Studies: the interdisciplinary study of American identity and culture in literature, history, religion, gender studies, and economics, whether dominant-culture or multicultural. 

• People may exploit the past to exploit people who know nothing of the past and have to believe what they hear.

Spoken & Written Cultures

Critical thinking:

unity & diversity, or identity and difference: How to tell a continuous story about America that involves “other Americas?”

succession and progression: is America in decline, in progress, or just evolving?

resistance to conspiracy theory while recognizing its attractions.

Teaching

Class Organization

Course webpage as evolving teaching tool

online texts for a face-to-face classroom

Student-led discussions

Attitudes

Build on what students already know (or may recognize or relate to)

Emphasis less on what to think than on how to think and discuss

Research posts as knowledge gathering + exams as opinion and analysis

Begin inclusion of Meso-America, Spanish colonization, and Hispanic / Mexican identities

Review of Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church (2012) by Timothy Matovina