Syllabus
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This page provides the syllabus text and a detailed overview of course requirements, texts, and grading criteria for the seminar.
Course Description
This course will explore two central concerns in American literary studies: what is "democratic" about literature written in the United States? And how does the problem of representative politics influence literary and textual representation? From F.O. Matthiessen's definition of a canon of five authors who shared a "devotion to the possibilities of democracy" in American Renaissance (1941); to the efforts to broaden that Cold War canon to be more democratically representative in the anthology projects and multicultural criticism of the 1980's; to the New Americanist project of decoupling "democracy" and "America" in order to critique U.S. imperial hegemony in the 1990's, democracy has been a central concept in the study of U.S. literature. One emphasis of this course will be on historical and contemporary theories of democracy as they relate to literary texts.
A second emphasis will be on textual forms as they figure in democratic theory. The possibilities of democracy today are frequently tied to new media, notably the Internet, which for some promises to realize ideals of participation and transparency. New media enthusiasts of the 19th Century saw similar democratic possibilities for immediacy and the diffusion of knowledge in the electric telegraph. An older tradition dating at least to the Reformation, with important exponents in the antebellum U.S., identifies democracy with print culture and literacy. Yet another view saw the "logocracy" of public speech and the emergent popular, participatory forms of the drama and the spectacle as essentially democratic. Specific literary genres, such as the novel and free verse, have also been characterized as "democratic," while critics have vigorously debated the political effects of particular literary styles, notably sentimentality.
Our readings will include classic and contemporary works of democratic theory; critical readings that explore the relationship between verbal and political representation; and a range of literary works that foreground the problem of mediation and its relationship to democratic politics.
Course Objectives
- Examining the development of a rich and contradictory interpretive concept (i.e., democracy) as it has evolved over several decades in literary and historical scholarship
- Studying a range of influential works of literature in relation to critical debates that surround the concept of democracy
- Considering the relationship of political and literary concepts, including representation and its relationship to media and mediation
- Engaging in collaborative pedagogy
- Writing papers with potential for eventual publication
Required Textbooks
| Author | Text |
|---|---|
| Dion Boucicault | The Octoroon |
| William Wells Brown | Clotel, or the President's Daughter |
| Alexis De Tocqueville |
Democracy in America (Perennial Classics Edition) |
| Margaret Fuller | Woman in the 19th Century |
| Nathaniel Hawthorne | House of the Seven Gables |
| Herman Melville | Moby Dick |
| John Rollin Ridge | Joaquin Murieta |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Henry David Thoreau | Walden |
| David Walker | David Walker's Appeal |
| Walt Whitman | Leaves of Grass & Other Writings |
It is particularly important that you have the Norton editions of Stowe and Whitman, which have critical essays that are included in the Calendar.
Sources for all secondary readings and critical articles are listed in the complete Course Bibliography.
Grading
| Component | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Attendance and Participation |
30% |
| Topic Statement and Annotated Bibliography |
10% |
| Class Conference |
20% |
| Final Paper |
40% |
| 100% |
For criteria regarding these assignments, please consult the Guidelines and Assignments section.
