English 256 - Winter, 2011

Early American Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Ziser, Michael
CRN: 43941
Time: M 3:10-6:00
Location: 248 Voorhies

Description

The expansion of empires and nations constitutes one of the most compelling themes in North American history. This team-taught interdisciplinary seminar considers widely varying examples of expansion at the intersection of environmental history and environmental literature. Using the tools available to both historians and literary scholars, we will explore the means by which expanding indigenous, colonial, and postcolonial cultures have reshaped nature in ways intended and not, fought with one another over the morality and prerogatives of doing so, and represented these processes for themselves and others. Our area of interest will be western North America and the Pacific.

**Please note**: this seminar is co-taught with history professor Louis Warren and is listed under two different department designations, English 256 (CRN 43941) and History 202H (CRN 27634). Students should sign up for whichever version works best with the requirements of their particular program. For English graduate students, the course may fulfill either the early or later national requirement, depending on the subject of the final paper.

*** A complete list of the books for this course can be found at:
http://www.amazon.com/lm/RKZ6KCSMYBLC7/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=

Grading

50% participation
50% term paper (20-25pp)

Texts

The Ford, Mary Austin
Violence Over the Land, Ned Blackhawk
In Darkest Alaska, Robert Campbell
Nature's Metropolis, William Cronon
City of Quartz, Mike Davis
Children of Coyote, Missionaries of St. Francis, Steven Hackel
The Comanche Empire, Pekka Hamalainen
Ramona, Helen Hunt Jackson
Migra! A History of the US Border Patrol, Kelly Lytle-Hernandez
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Understories, Jake Kosek
Crossing Over, Ruben Martinez
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Pit, Frank Norris
Dreambirds, Rob Nixon