English 143 - Fall, 2011

19th C. American Literature to the Civil War

Class Information

Instructor: Jensen, Kristian
CRN: 62450
Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Location: 106 Olson

Description

The concept of “culture” did not gain its modern sense until the 1870s, but many antebellum writers were engaged in questions of cultural and racial identity. In this course we will examine the origins of American identities and the precursors for the conceptions of cultural identity groups or types such as the frontiersman, the “Indian,” the (white) Northerner and Southerner, and the slave. We will look at a variety of texts including actual and fictional travel narratives, abolitionist novels and a range of short stories spanning from the Revolution to the Civil War. Among the topics we will consider are early nationalism, “Manifest Destiny,” slavery, racial thinking, and sentimentalism. Issues to be examined include territorial expansion and American Indian removal, formation of American cultural identity, gender inequality and abolitionism. In works by authors like Irving, Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, Cooper, Stowe, Douglass, and others, we will look at questions that preoccupied antebellum Americans, including: What are Americans, and how are they different than Europeans? Who are American Indians, and where did they come from? What is African and African-American culture, and what elements of African cultures survived the Middle Passage? Exploring these questions will give us insight into the formation of national, racial and cultural categories that persist, although in different forms, into the present.

Grading

Two essays (one 3-4 page, one 5-6 page); midterm and final exams; active class participation; in-class writing

Texts

Heath Anthology of American Literature, (Early 19th Century 1800-1865) Volume B. 5th edition
Typee, Herman Melville
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Edgar Allan Poe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin , Harriet Beecher Stowe
Blake, or the Huts of America, Martin R. Delany