Early American Literature: 1620–1820

Catalog description

This course examines the rise of American narrative through the nation's colonial and early national periods, especially in British North America between 1620 and 1820. Topics for consideration could include exploration of how such narratives as the memoir, captivity narrative, sermon, and novel fostered the invention and formation of Americanness and American literature, examination of the fundamental ideas, myths, and intellectual concepts that still influence the ways in which Americans think about themselves and their societies; and consideration of how anxieties about race, class, gender, and religion informed the creation of literary texts in early America.