Literatures of Pre-Colonial and Colonial America

Catalog description

What constitutes the earliest forms of American literature? How did writing in the Americas prior to the foundation of modern nation-states grow out of and respond to the unique circumstances of contact and collision between the “Old World” of Europe and the “New World” of America? How was colonial American literature situated in the larger geopolitical arenas of the Atlantic World, the Black Atlantic, and competing imperialist projects? Students encounter the diverse genres and multiple literary traditions that converged in North America from the initial arrival of Europeans up to the American Revolution. May take a comparative transatlantic, transnational, and / or hemispheric approach, with readings drawn from the literatures of British, French and Spanish America as well as Native American cultures.