New England Literary Culture in the 19th Century 4219-RS203
Each participant will choose a topic to work on till the end, sharing the results of his/her research on the basis of primary and secondary literature in the form of oral presentation. The final result will be a 20-page long paper with footnotes and bibliography.
Sample topics of research projects (suggested):
1. Secularization of culture in Boston and southeastern Massachusetts in the first decade of the 19th century.
2. Literary magazines edited by Harvad graduates: The Monthly Anthology, North American Review, Atlantic Monthly
3. Theological and philosophical debates of the Congregationalists and Unitarians as stimuli of the literary evolution
4. The abortive beginnings of romanticism: R.H. Dana, Sr., W.C. Bryant
5. The rise of the Transcendental Club: origin, inspirations, breakthrough
6. The early works of R.W, Emerson
7. The role of M. Fuller in the rise of American romantic literature, journalism, and the cultural emancipation of women
8. Transcendentalism: native or important?
9. H.D. Thoreau and R.W. Emerson as political writers
10. The Boston Brahmins as a cultural milieu: J. and A. Fields, H.W. Longfellow, J.R. Lowell
11. The rise of the "domestic novel" and the development of popular literature by and for women
12. N. Hawthorne's historical consciousness
13. The concept of history in early Emerson's writings
14. "Local color" fiction afre the Civil War: A record of decadence
15. The evolution of the literature of horror from N. Hawthorne to H. Beecher Stowe and M.E. Wilkins Freeman
16. Abolitionism in New England: politics and literature
17. New England after the Civil War as a museum and tourist area
18. Nature in the literature of New England: W.C. Bryant, R.W. Emerson, H.D. Thoreau
19. Critique and defense of tradition in New England culture
20. Between rejection and dialog: Europe and the American identity in New England
Type of course
proseminars
Mode
Classroom
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
1. KNOWLEDGE
The student has an advanced knowledge of the literary culture of New England in the 19th century in a historical peerspective.
2. SKILLS
The student can analyze and interpret texts of culture, including secondary literature, formulate research tasks, and argue for a position taken, as well as apply specialist terminology in English.
3. SOCIAL COMPETENCE
The student realizes and understands cultural diversity, and can properly plan as well as carry out his/her research.
Assessment criteria
Requirements:
1. Systematic research on the selected topic - 40%
2. Brief presentations of research results - 30%
3. Seminar paper (20 pages) - 30%
Bibliography
Secondary literature:
Allen, Margaret Vanderhaar, The Achievement of Margaret Fuller. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979
Benn Michaels, Walter and Donald E. Pease, eds., The American Renaissance Reconsidered. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985
Buell, Lawrence, Literary Transcendentalism. Style and Vision in the American Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973
Buell, Lawrence, New England Literary Culture. From Revolution Through Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986
Buell, Lawrence, Emerson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003
Conforti, Joseph A., Imagining New England. Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001
Donovan, Josephine, New England Local Color Literature. A Women’s Tradition. New York: Continuum, 1988
Douglas, Ann, The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Avon Books, 1977
Field, Peter S. The Crisis of the Standing Order. Clerical Intellectuals and Cultural Authority in Massachusetts, 1780-1833. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998
Gura, Philip F., American Transcendentalism. A History. New York: Hill & Wang, 2007
Halttunen, Karen, Confidence Men and Painted Women. A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982
Howe, Daniel Walker, The Unitarian Conscience. Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805-1861. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1988
Hutchison, William R., The Transcendentalist Ministers. Church Reform in the New England Renaissance. Hamden, Conn.: The Shoestring Press, 1972
Kelley, Mary, Private Woman, Public Stage. Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984
McWilliams, John, New England’s Crises and Cultural Memory. Literature, Politics, History, Religion, 1620-1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004
Nagel, James and Richard Astro, eds., American Literature: The New England Heritage. New York: Garland Publishing, 1981
Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance. The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988
Rose, Anne C., Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830-1850. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981
Westbrook, Perry D., Acres of Flint. Sarah Orne Jewett and Her Contemporaries. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1981
Westbrook, Perry D., A Literary History of New England. Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1988
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: