In this seminar, we will critically investigate the construction of national narratives in texts ranging from the Revolutionary Period, the Early Republic to the 19th Century. Students will be introduced to selected seminal texts like Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer, which were influential for the construction of “American identities.” This course will introduce and contextualize fundamental ingredients of America’s self-understanding like the “Virgin land,” “exceptionalism,” “Manifest Destiny” or the “American dream,” which we will identify and analyze in our primary texts. Students will learn to understand discourses about the importance of these cultural signifiers for the self-stylization of the U.S. as a nation as well as the importance of their utilization in literary texts for the process of nation-building. Our readings will include Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Wieland, Or The Transformation: An American Tale and a selection of shorter fiction like Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle.”
Please buy Brockden Brown’s Wieland in the following edition:
Brockden Brown, Charles. Wieland, Or The Transformation: An American Tale. Oxford UP, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-199538775.
The shorter primary texts as well as a selection of secondary material will be made available in form of a reader.
Requirements: Class participation, including reading and writing assignments, active participation in class discussion, a short presentation in class and a seminar paper.
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