| Course Title: Early American Narratives and Counternarratives |
| Start Date: 09/06/2023 End Date: 12/19/2023 |
| Term: Fall Semester 2023 |
| Description: This course frames early American literary and cultural history as a series of hegemonic narratives and counternarratives. Starting with the violence of settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance, this course considers how US literary and national traditions have always been contested by oppressed and dispossessed peoples, who have offered alternatives to predominant American mythologies such as individualism and freedom. We will also track how African American antislavery writers established rhetorical and literary forms in opposition to slavery that influenced the protest and reform ethos of the first half of the nineteenth century. By focusing on the development of various literary forms such as the essay, oratory, the slave narrative, and poetry, this course will consider how Black writers, Indigenous figures, women, and social reform movements reconsidered questions surrounding race, gender, and class from sixteenth-century contact and colonization up until the end of the Civil War. |
| Distribution(s): I - Humanities |
| Academic Level Of Course: Undergraduate | Credits:4.00 |
| Faculty | Phone | Email address |
| Alex Moskowitz | 413-538-2457 | amoskowitz@mtholyoke.edu |
| Meeting Dates | Method | Meeting days | Meeting times | Building name | Room | Frequency |
| 09/06/2023 - 12/19/2023 | Seminar | Monday and Wednesday | 10:00AM - 11:15AM | SHTK - Shattuck Hall | 203 | Weekly |
| Requisite Courses | ||
| None |
| Comments |
| Additional Comments |
| Meets the department's legacy 1700-1900 requirement. |
| Course Tags | ||
| ENGL0001 | ENGL-HP: Literary History and Period | This course has been approved to count towards the English major's Literary History and Period Disciplinary Perspectives requirement. |
| Cross-listed Sections |
| None |
| Course Availability | ||||
| Section status: Closed | Capacity: 18 | Enrollment: 18 | Available: 0 | Waitlist: 0 |
BOOK INFORMATION
| Book List | Required | Publisher Full Price |
| Title: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass & Incidents in the Life of a... Author: Douglass; Jacobs, Frederick; Harriet Copyright: 2004 Edition: Volume: ISBN: 9780345478238 Publisher: The Modern Library |
Required | 6.95 |
| Title: Life of Black Hawk, or Mà-ka-tai-me-she-kià-kiàk, Dictated by Himself Author: Hawk, Black Copyright: 2008 Edition: Volume: ISBN: 9780143105398 Publisher: Penguin |
Required | 12.00 |
| Additional Book Comments |
| This is the complete book list for this class. |