Course Description

In this course, we will study literature written before the Civil War that confronts questions of American identity.  In particular, we will examine texts that help us to respond to two framing questions: what is America and who is an American? America has been imagined as both a physical, geographical space as well as an idea. We will study representations of America as a hostile wilderness, a Paradise Found, a New Jerusalem and a “City on a Hill.” Students will be introduced to contemporary eco-critical methods of analysis in order to explore this question. In addition, we will also study the ways in which the identities of the inhabitants of America are formed through their interactions with physical environments and in their contacts and conflicts with others. In this respect, the genre of autobiography and other forms of life-writing will be our focal point, and we will consider how formal and generic conventions, as much as political and ideological positions, shape a variety of American identities.

            We will begin our study of this period of American literature with one of the "hypercanonical" works of the American tradition: Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.  This text has long served as a kind of touchstone in discussions and representation of both the American landscape and a particularly valorized type of American identity.  After an in-depth study of Thoreau’s work, we will then work our way through five interconnected modules that can be read as a kind of genealogy for Walden: Stories of Creation, Exploration, and Discovery; Captivity Narratives; Early American Autobiography; Race and Life Writing; and Writing Regions: New England, New York, and West Virginia.

Course Goals

Knowledge-based
1. To become familiar some of the majors authors and the major issues of American literature from its beginnings to the Civil War
2. To develop a deeper understanding of the genre of autobiography and other forms of life writing
3. To learn about environmental approaches to literature

Skill-Based
1. To improve scholarly research and writing skills.
2. To improve close reading skills.
3. To improve ability to synthesize and integrate information and ideas.
4. To improve ability to orally articulate critical ideas and to argue scholarly positions.

Value-Based
1. To develop aesthetic appreciation for the literature of another era.
2. To develop an informed historical understanding about the different ideas and artistic styles of another era.
3. To learn to respect the work of other scholars, and to value one's own voice and ideas as a researcher and interpreter of texts.
4. To become aware of the relevance of early American literature for contemporary culture and to reflect on how literature responds to the questions of what is America and what it means to be an American.