American Individualism 4219-SB129-OG

B 129 American Individualism: Figuring the Self from Anne Hutchinson to Henry Adams

Class 1
Introductory: American Individualism – Myth and Realities
Class 2
Fanny Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans. Ed. Pamela Neville-Sington. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982. Introduction, Part I, chapters VI, VIII, X, XI, XII, XIV.
Class 3
Anne Hutchinson, "The Examination of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson at the Court at Newtown" in The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638. Ed. David D. Hall. Durham: Duke UP, 1990, 311-348.
Philip F. Gura, “Anne Hutchinson and the ‘Antinomians’” in A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1984. 237-275.
Class 4
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, [Part Two] in Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. Eds J. A. Leo Lemay and P.M. Zall. New York: W.W. Norton, 1986. 58-76.
Daniel Walker Howe, Making of the American Self. Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 21-33.
John William Ward, “Who Was Benjamin Franklin?” in Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, 325-335.
J. A. Leo Lemay, “Franklin’s Autobiography and the American Dream” Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, 349-360.
Class 5
Mary Prince, “The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave” in Six Women’s Slave Narratives. Ed. William L. Andrews. New York: Oxford UP, 1988, 1-44.
Wiliam L. Andrews, “Introduction” in Six Women’s Slave Narratives, xxix-xli.
Class 6
William Apess, "A Son of the Forest" in On Our Own Ground. The Complete Writings of William Apess, a Pequot. Ed. Barry O’Connell. Amherst: The Univ. of Massachusetts P, 1992, 1-52.
Barry O’Connell, “Introduction” in On Our Own Ground, xiii-lxxvii.
Class 7
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Doctrine of the Hands,” “The Head,” in The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. II 1836-1838. Ed. Stephen E. Whicher. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1964. 230-261.
Class 8
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” “Circles” in The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Essays: First Series. Ed. Joseph Slater, 25-51, 179-190.
Sacvan Bercovitch, “Emerson, Individualism, and Liberal Dissent,” in Rites of Assent. Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America. New York: Routledge, 1993, 307-352.
George Kateb, Emerson and Self-Reliance. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 1-36.
Tony Tanner, “Emerson: The Unconquered Eye and the Enchanted Circle” in Romanticism. Critical Essays in American Literature. Eds James Barbour and Thomas Quirk. New York: Garland, 1986, 43-58.
Class 9
Frederick Douglass, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” in Frederick Douglass, Autobiographies. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Library of America, 1994, 1-102.
Priscilla Wald, “Neither Citizen Nor Alien: National Narratives, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Self-Definition” in Constituting Americans. Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form. Durham: Duke UP, 1995, 14-105.
Class 10
Margaret Fuller, "Self-Definitions," "Autobiographical Romance," "Leila" in The Essential Margaret Fuller. Ed. Jeffrey Steele. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992, 1-43, 53-58.
Daniel Walker Howe, Making of the American Self. Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 212-234.
Class 11
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience," Walden (”Economy,” “Where I Lived and What I Lived For”)
Richard Drinnon, “Thoreau’s Politics of the Upright Man” in Walden and Resistance to Civil Government. Second Edition. Ed. William Rossi. New York: W. W. Norton: 1992, 366-377.
Stanley Cavell, [“Captivity and Despair in Walden and ‘Civil Disobedience’”] in Walden and Resistance to Civil Government, 390-405.
Class 12
Herman Melville, "Bartleby"
Dan McCall, The Silence of Bartleby. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989, 59-77.
Kingsley Widmer, The Ways of Nihilism. Herman Melville’s Short Novels. Los Angeles: California State Colleges, 1970, 91-125
Class 13 (term papers due)
Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (”Quincy,” “Boston,” “Washington,” “Harvard College”). Ed. Ernest Samuels. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974, 1-69.
John Carlos Rowe, Henry Adams and Henry James. The Emergence of Modern Consciousness. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1976, 93-131.
Class 14
Individual paper discussion