Hafta 1
Sarah Song, “What does it mean to be an American?” Daedalus, Vol. 138, No. 2 (Spring 2009): 31-40. Excerpts from U.S.President Barack Obama’s “Inaugural Address” (2009) (handout) A Brief Lecture on an overview of the literary periods in American Literature: Literature to 1750 (2-27) Native American Origin and Creation Stories (29-33) “Origin of Folk Stories (Seneca)” (34-36) “A Tale of the Foundation of the Great Island, Now North American—The Two Infants Born, and the Creation of the Universe (Tuscarora)” (37-40) “Wohpe and the Gift of the Pipe (Lakota)” (48-50) “Native American Stories through a Modern Lens” (54) N. Scott Momaday, “The Becoming of the Native: Man in America Before Columbus” (55-59)
Hafta 2
Explorations and Early Encounters (61-65) Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) (66-68), “Letter of Columbus, Describing the Results of His First Voyage” (68-73) Benjamin Franklin, “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” (821-824) (18th century piece on Native Americans) Readings: Howard Zinn, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress” (1-22) Howard Zinn, “As Long As Grass Grows or Water Runs” (124-146)
Hafta 3
Colonial Settlements (93-106) Captain John Smith (1580-1631) (106-109), From The Generall Historie of Virginia (110-119) Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) (167-169), “An Epitaph on My Dear and Ever-Honoured Mother…” (176-177), “The Flesh and The Spirit” (178-180), “To My Dear and Loving Husband” (182) “Bradstreet through a Modern Lens” (187-188) Mary Rowlandson (1636-1711) (190-192), From The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (192-203) Readings: Puritan settlers--“The Founding of New England”
Hafta 4
American Contexts: Colonial Diaries and Journals (252-253) Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) (253-254), From The Diary of Samuel Sewall (253-259) Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727) (265), From The Private Journal of a Journey… (266-270)
Hafta 5
American Literature 1750-1830 (312-333) Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) (276-278), “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (291-303) “Edwards Through a Modern Lens” (306-307) Writing Colonial Lives—Introduction (335-340) Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) (340-343), From The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Part Two (361-371) “Franklin Through a Modern Lens” (372-375) Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) (414-416), from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, chapter two (416-426)
Hafta 6
American Contexts: ‘To Begin With the World Over Again’: The Emerging Idea of ‘America’ (427-429) J.Hector St. John de Crevecoeur (1735-1813) (429-430), “What is an American?” from Letters from an American Farmer (430-433) Thomas Paine (1737-1809) (437-438), from Common Sense (438-441) Literature for a New Nation (467-475) Recommended reading: “‘Who Reads an American Book?’: Calls for a National Literature” (476-478) James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) (493), From Notions of the Americans (493-494) Readings: “The Struggle For Independence, 1763-1783” Howard Zinn, “Tyranny is Tyranny” (59-75) Howard Zinn, “A Kind of Revolution” (76-101)
Hafta 7
Holidays—No Classes
Hafta 8
American Literature, 1830-1865 (588-605) The Era of Reform (607-616) Philip Freneau (1752-1832) (495-496), “On the Emigration to America” (499-501) Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) (503-504), “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (505-506) “Wheatley through a Modern Lens” (517) Washington Irving (1783-1859) (520-523), “The Author’s Account of Himself” (523-525) & “Rip Van Winkle” (530-542) Midterm Exam--November 5, 2013 (Wednesday) (Based on all the texts assigned during weeks 1-6)
Hafta 9
American Contexts: “I Will be Heard”: The Rhetoric of Antebellum Reform (617-618) David Walker (1785-1830), from An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (619-621) Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), from “Declaration of Sentiments” (629-632) Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) (637), “Speech to a Women’s Rights Convention” (638) Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) (645-646), “Letter from New York” (647-653) Readings: Howard Zinn, “Drawing the Color Line” (23-38) Howard Zinn, “The Intimately Oppressed” (102-123) Recommended Reading: Linda K. Kerber, “Why Diamonds Really are a Girl’s Best Friend: Another American Narrative” Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 141.1 (Winter 2012): 1-12.
Hafta 10
Emerson, Thoreau & Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) (653-655), “Self-Reliance” (684-701) Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) (725-726), From Woman in the Nineteenth Century (727-733) Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862) (792-793), “Resistance to Civil Government” (794-809) Readings: Howard Zinn, “We Take Nothing By Conquest, Thank God” (147-166)
Hafta 11
Slavery & the Struggle for Freedom Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) (855-857), from Narrative of the Life of F.Douglass, an American Slave, chs. 1-4 (865-876), 7 (881-884), 11 (909-917) “Douglass Through a Modern Lens” (923) African American Slave Songs (1800-1865) (925), “Roll, Jordan, Roll” (926-927), “Many Thousand Go” (927-928), “Go Down, Moses” (928) “Slave Songs through a Modern Lens” (931) Readings: Howard Zinn, “Slavery without Submission, Emancipation without Freedom” (167-205)
Hafta 12
American Contexts: “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory”: The Meanings of the Civil War (1354-1356) Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) (1372), “The Gettysburg Address: Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg, 1863” (1373) & “Second Inaugural Address” (1374-1375) William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) (1382), “The Death of Lincoln” (1383) Walt Whitman (1819-1892) (1390), From Memoranda During the War (1390-1391)
Hafta 13
American Facts and Fiction (935-943) Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) (966-968), “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” (973-986) Industrialization: “The Age of Industry, 1865-1900” Herman Melville (1819-1891) (1072-1074), “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1075-1101) Readings: Howard Zinn, “Robber Barons and Rebels” (247-289)
Hafta 14
New Poetic Voices (1195-1201) Frances E. W. Harper (1825-1911) (1230-1231), “The Slave Woman” (1231-1232) Walt Whitman (1819-1892) (1236-1239), from “Song of Myself” Stanzas 1-6 (1240-1245), 24 (1257-1259), 50-52 (1284-1285) Walt Whitman, “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” (1289) New Poetic Voices continued “Whitman through a Modern Lens” (1311) Langston Hughes (1902-1967), “Old Walt” (1312) Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), “A Supermarket in California” (1312-1313) Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) (1314-1315), “Success is counted sweetest” (1318), “I felt a Funeral in My Brain” (1323-1324), “Much Madness is divinest sense” (1329), “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—“ (1331), “Because I could not stop for death—“ (1338-1339) “Dickinson through a Modern Lens” (1350) Readings: Howard Zinn, “The Empire and the People” (290-313) Mourning Abraham Lincoln’s death: Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” stanzas 1-3 (1301) & stanzas 15-16 (1306-1307)