English 755 | Winter 2009

Prof.Jared Gardner | Office: 530 DENNEY | Hours: Wed 2-4 & by appt.  

Email: gardner.236 @osu.edu | http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/Gardner236


Tues 1/6

Introductions; Winthrop, Cotton, & Co.

Reading: PIA, 1-106

Thurs 1/8

Anne Bradstreet & Anne Hutchinson

Reading: PIA, 128-78; supplementary texts*

Bercovitch, “The Puritan Errand Reassessed”*

Reid, “Bradstreet’s Monstrous Birth”*

Tues 1/13

Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God

Reading: JNW, 11-65, PIA, 229-60

Burnham, “Captivity, Cultural Contact, & Commodification”*

Toulouse, “The Sovereignty and Goodness of God in 1682”*

Thurs 1/15

Mather, Taylor and the Wonders of the Invisible World

Reading: PIA, 294-350

Craig, The "Peculiar Elegance" of Edward Taylor's Poetics”*

Tracy, “Spectral Evidence and the Puritan Crisis of Subjectivity”*

Tues 1/20

Knight, Franklin and the Wonders of the Visible World

Reading: JNW, 67-116; PIA, 395-99; BFA, 212-28; Autobiography

Stern, “To relish and to spew”*

Fliegelman, “The Debt of Nature Reconsidered”*

Thurs 1/22

Ben Franklin, Autobiography (continued)

Warner, “ Franklin and the Letter’s of the Republic”*

Looby, “’The Affair of the Revolution Occasion’d the Interruption”*

Tues 1/27

Crevecoeur

Reading: Letters, 35-126; 144-54; 166-227

Hewitt, “National Letters”*

Bauer, “Dismembering the Empire”*

Thurs 1/29

Hammon, Gronniosaw, Marrant & Smith

Reading: UV, 20-24; 32-53; 110-28; 369-85

Zafar, “Capturing the Captivity”*

Weyler, “Race, Redemption, and Captivity”*

Tues 2/3

Equiano, Interesting Narrative

Reading: UV, 185-289

Baker, “Figurations for a New American Literary History”*

Potkay et al, “Teaching Equiano’s Interesting Narrative”*

Thurs 2/5

Equiano (continued) & Wheatley

Reading: UV, 59-72

Shields, “Phillis Wheatley’s Subversive Pastoral”*

Slauter, “Neoclassical Culture in a Society with Slaves”*

Tues 2/10

The Rise of the Novel: William Hill Brown, Power of Sympathy (1787)

Davidson, “Commodity and Communication: The First American Novel”*

Barnes, “Affecting Relations”*

Thurs 2/12

Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette (1797)

Burgett, “Corresponding Sentiments and Republican Letters”*

Schweitzer, “Resurrecting Friendship from the Tomb of Marriage”*

Tues 2/17

Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)

Fliegelman, “Introduction”

Tompkins, “What Happens in Wieland”*

Thurs 2/19

Wieland (cont.)

Korobkin, “Law and Judgment in Wieland”*

Williams, “Writing Under the Influence”*

Tues 2/24

Washington Irving (selections)

Ferguson, “Rip VanWinkle and the Generational Divide in American Culture”*

Anthony, ‘‘Sleepy Hollow,’’ Gothic Masculinity, and the Panic of 1819"*

Thurs 2/26

Cooper, Last of Mohicans (1826)

Slotkin, “Introduction”

Tompkins, “No Apologies for the Iqoquois”*

Tues 3/3

Last of the Mohicans (cont.)

Romero, “Vanishing Americans”*

Decker, ““'Surely Cora Was Not Forgotten’”*

Thurs 3/5

NO CLASS

Tues 3/10

Catherine Maria Child, Hope Leslie (1827)

Stadler, “Magawisca’s Body of Knowledge”*

Fetterly, “’My Sister! My Sister!”*

Thurs 3/12

Hope Leslie (cont.)

Gould, “Sedgwick’s ‘Recital’ of the Pequod War”*

Samuels, “Women, Blood, and Contract”


Required texts:


Carretta, Vincent, editor, Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century (University Press of Kentucky) ISBN: 0813108845

Heimert, Alan, editor, The Puritans in America: A Narrative Anthology (Harvard University Press) ISBN: 0674740661

Franklin, Benjamin, Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography (Norton) ISBN: 0393952940

Andrews, William L., editor, Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women's Narratives (University of Wisconsin Press) ISBN: 029912584X

Brown, Charles Brockden, Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (Penguin) ISBN: 0140390790

Cooper, James Fenimore Last of the Mohicans (Penguin) ISBN: 0140390243

Brown, William Hill and Hannah Webster Foster, The Power of Sympathy and The Coquette (Penguin) ISBN: 0140434682

Sedgwick, Maria, Hope Leslie: or, Early Times in the Massachusetts (Penguin) ISBN: 0140436766

Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John De, Letters from an American Farmer (Penguin) ISBN: 0140390065

Irving, Washington, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories (Signet) ISBN: 0451530128


E-texts (marked on the schedule as *) will be found on the class’s Carmen site.




Assignments:


• • All of the primary texts are required to be read, with copious notes, before the class in which they are scheduled. For the secondary critical texts on the syllabus you are required to read at least one for each day’s class (these readings will be available on our Carmen site)


• • During the semester, you will sign up for one short (5-6 page) paper, in which you will present a response to the critical essays for that day on our syllabus. These papers will be posted to Carmen by 3PM on the day before we have class discussion on the text; in class you’ll offer a brief (5-10 minute) presentation that summarizes your argument. I will offer written commentary on the papers and the presentation. Your task is both to summarize the crucial stakes and claims of the argumenta, as well as to position yourself in relation to the critics. That positioning needs to be other than merely rapture or dismissal: in other words, your emphasis needs to explain the reasons why the arguments succeed or do not. Those not presenting on any given will be responsible for responding in class to the brief presentations and the short papers, offering questions, supporting evidence, and challenges.


•• During the semester you will write one primary research paper (4-5 pages + pdfs for primary texts), exploring an issue, author, or thematic that has come up in the course of our readings and discussion in other early American primary sources (see below for starting point). This essay can be turned in at any time, but is due no later than Friday 2/27 (it should be turned in electronically as a Word attachment as it will be part of the class’s collective archive). I will post a sample version early the term.


•• Engaged and dynamic seminar participation is required every day. Participation in Carmen discussions (especially those raising questions or offering tentative arguments about the upcoming day’s texts) will be factored in evaluating class participation. As with all graduate classes, perfect attendance is the expectation.


• • A final (12-15 page) research paper in which you develop an original argument in the context of primary and secondary-source material.



Internet Resources


The 21st century is a golden age for the study of early American literature; throughout the term we will discuss research techniques for primary and secondary research. Some important archives with which to begin your own explorations are:


Early English Books Online: texts from Great Britain and British North America, 1473-1700

Early American Newspapers: full searchable texts of the earliest American newspapers

Early American Imprints Series I (Evans): virtually every extant American book and pamphlet from 1639-1800

Early American Imprints Series II (Shaw & Shoemaker): like Evans, but for 1801-1819

American and English Literature: contains the valuable UVA Early American Fiction collection

American Periodical Series: the definitive source for accessing and researching early American magazines

Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers: primarily better for later papers, but strong in early 19th century


[note: all of these resources require on-campus connections or setting up off campus proxy connections through the library]