Professor
Karen Weyler
English
564-01: American Prose Writers to 1900
Thursdays
3:30
Spring
2002
Office: McIver 109
Office hours: Tuesdays
10:30
Thursdays 12:15
Telephone:
334-4689 Email: KAWeyler@uncg.edu Web site: http://www.uncg.edu/~kaweyler
Required
Texts
Alcott, Louisa May. Work. Penguin.
Davis, Rebecca Harding. Life in the Iron Mills. Bedford/St.
Martin's.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Prose and Poetry.
Norton.
Fern, Fanny.
Ruth Hall. Penguin.
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Norton.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Blithedale Romance.
Bedford/St. Martin's.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Norton.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Norton.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Resistance to Civil Government. Norton.
Wilson, Harriet. Our Nig. Vintage.
Additional readings will be placed on reserve.
Course
Description
English 564 is a
graduate-level course in American literature for students seeking the M.A.,
M.F.A., M.Ed., and Ph.D. degrees; it is also open to advanced undergraduates
with permission of the instructor or director of graduate studies.
Our objective in English 564 is to acquaint you
with important prose by American writers before 1900. In this particular course, we're going to look at some of the key
issues of nineteenth-century American cultureindividualism, and more
specifically self-culture, and the relationship of individualism and
self-culture to labor, both intellectual and physical. How are the tenets of individualism
complicated, challenged, or undone by the necessity of work? by gender?
by race? by slavery? by citizenship status? Further, what roles do affect,
sentimentality, and sympathy play in self-culture?
We'll begin our class by reading several
important essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the apostle of the nineteenth-century
self-culture movement. From there,
we'll consider how writers both canonical and non-canonical wrestle with these
issues.
Student
Learning Goals
By the end of the
semester, students will be able to write and speak clearly, coherently, and
insightfully about the challenges that labor, gender, race, and class presented
to the discourses of individualism and self-culture in nineteenth-century
America. Students will also be familiar
with some of the major critical work in nineteenth-century studies.
Course
Requirements and Evaluation for
Undergraduate Students
Course
Requirements and Evaluation for Graduate Students
Office
Hours and Conferences
At the beginning of the semester, I will
schedule brief (10 minute) introductory conferences in my office so that we
will have a chance to meet and speak individually. You are also welcome to visit my office at any point during the
semester or to schedule an appointment outside of my usual office hours in
order to discuss reading assignments, papers, etc.
Academic
Integrity Policy
I expect every student to abide by the
principles of the Academic Integrity Policy, which appears in the Student
Handbook. Students will need to sign
the Academic Integrity Pledge on all major work. In addition, you must properly document any use of another's
words, ideas, or research; unacknowledged use of someone else's thoughts is
plagiarism. Please use MLA style
documentation to document any sources used in written work. Work that is not properly documented will
receive a zero; further penalties may be assessed according to the criteria
established under the Academic Integrity Policy. If you have questions concerning documentation, please consult
me.
Attendance
Policy
I expect students to attend class and arrive on
time, unless due to unavoidable events such as illness or death in the
family. Since this is a discussion
class, your presence is important to the success of the class as a whole. I require students to attend at least 75% of
the scheduled class meetings in order to pass this class. More than two absences, regardless of
excuse, may negatively impact your grade.
Four or more absences, regardless of excuse, will result in the student
being dropped from the class.
What
Can You Expect from Your Professor?
You can expect that I will treat you as an
adult, encourage your participation in this class, listen carefully to what you
have to say, and challenge your thinking.
You can also expect me to evaluate your work fairly and to offer
constructive criticism and praise of your written work and oral presentations.
Course Calendar
Please note that this syllabus is subject to
change. In the event of inclement
weather, you should be guided by the UNCG adverse weather policy. If necessary, I will send out email
informing you of any changes in our schedule of readings.
Th
Jan. 17 Course introduction
Th Jan. 24 Emerson,
"The American Scholar" 56-69; "Self-Reliance" 120-37;
Gougeon, from Virtue's Hero 758-67; Joan Shelley Rubin, "Self,
Culture, and Self-Culture in America," in The Making of Middlebrow
Culture, 1-33 (reserve).
Report: John Cawelti, Apostles
of the Self-Made Man
Th
Jan 31 Emerson,
"Experience" 198-213; "Compensation" 137-49; Gilmore,
"Emerson and the Persistence of the Commodity" 712-25; West, from The
Emersonian Prehistory of American Pragmatism 742-58; Thoreau, Walden
(to the "Ponds" chapter); Cavell, "Captivity and Despair"
390-405
Th
Feb. 7 Thoreau: Walden
(finish); "Resistance to Civil Government" 226-45. Report:
Dana Nelson, National Manhood
Th
Feb. 14 Fuller, Woman in the
Nineteenth Century 1-136; skim early reviews 213-34; read Zwarg,
"Fuller's Scene" 272-78.
Report: read William Ellery
Channing, Self-Culture; skim George L. Craik, Pursuit of Knowledge
under Difficulties
Th
Feb. 21 Hawthorne, The Blithedale
Romance 37-218; skim introductory material 3-36; Marx, "On Alienated
Labor" 224-229; Owen, "On Individual Society vs. Cooperative
Society" 350-52; Alcott and Lane, "On the Community at
Fruitlands" 362-66; Alcott, "Transcendental Wild Oats" 366-81;
Dwight, "On Life at Brook Farm" 440-43; Butterfield, from
"Reminiscences of Brook Farm" 443-55. Report: Lauren Berlant, The Anatomy of National Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life
Th
Feb. 28 Fern, Ruth Hall
3-272; Brace, from The Dangerous Classes of New York 226-44 (in Davis, Life
in the Iron Mills). Reports: Karen
Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middleclass Culture in America, 1830-1870;
Kessler-Harris, Chapter 3 "Industrial Wages Earners and the Domestic
Ideology" 45-72 and Chapter 4 "Why is it can a woman not be virtuous
if she does mingle with the toilers?" 75-107 in Out to Work (on
reserve)
Th
Mar. 7 Wilson, Our Nig
1-140; skim introductory material.
Report: Robyn Wiegman, American
Anatomies : Theorizing Race and Gender.
Midterm Essay due
March
9
Th
Mar. 21 Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
1-189. Report: Gillian Brown, Domestic Individualism
Th
Mar. 28 Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
190-388; skim nineteenth-century reviews and responses 459-89; Levine, "UTC
in Frederick Douglass' Paper" 523-42. Reports: Tompkins,
"Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's
Cabin and the Politics of Literary History" 501-22; Lori Merish, Sentimental
Materialism
Th
Apr. 4 Jacobs, Incidents in the
Life of a Slave Girl 1-158; skim contemporary responses 161-65; Spelman,
"The Heady Political Life of Compassion" 353-64; Foster,
"Resisting Incidents" 312-29.
Report: William L. Andrews, To
Tell a Free Story
Th.
Apr. 11 Davis, Life in the Iron
Mills 39-74; skim introductory material 3-37; Brownson, from "The
Laboring Classes" 209-220; Emerson, from "American Civilization"
220-221; Beecher, from "Practical Hints" 221-226; Melville, "The
Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids." Report:
Anne Ruggles Gere, Intimate Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in U.S. Women's Clubs, 1880-1920
Th
Apr. 18 Alcott, Work 5-344;
skim introduction after you've read the novel.
Reports: Glenn Hendler, Public
Sentiments: Structures of Feeling in
Nineteenth-Century American Literature; Tompkins, "But Is It Any
Good?: The Institutionalization of
Literary Value," in Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs 186-201
Th
Apr. 25 Class presentations
Th
May 2 Class presentations
Final Papers due: Friday, May 3, 3:00 p.m.
Take-Home Final Examination due: Friday, May 10, 3:00 p.m.
Oral Presentations
Over the course of the semester, each student
will be responsible for 3 oral presentations or reports. These presentations will be as follows:
1) Book/Article Reviews
These reviews are intended to introduce you and
your classmates to some of the major studies of nineteenth-century American
literature as well as to give you a chance to practice writing a book
review. You will be responsible for
summarizing for the class the main argument(s) of the book/article, along with
the critic's general approach and supporting evidence. Consider how this argument might be useful
to us, ways to extend this argument, the methodology, flaws or gaps in the
argument, etc. Your review should be
about three pages in length. A good
rule of thumb for reviews is to aim for about 2/3 summary and 1/3
analysis. For models, you may look at
recent reviews in American Literature.
You will turn in to me the written version of
your review on the day you give it. For
the oral portion of your report, you may read or you may choose to talk through
your paper. You will have 10-12 minutes
to review the book/article for the class.
Afterward, be prepared to answer questions about your topic and how it
relates to our readings.
2) Discussion Leading
Each student will lead class discussion for 30
minutes. You are in charge of directing
discussion during this time. It's fine
if the issues you raise continue to occupy us for somewhat longer than that
time, but you are not responsible for doing more. In addition to discussing issues you find interesting, you should
also frame for us the major critical issues surrounding your text. To prepare yourself to lead the discussion,
you should, of course, have read the entire text. You should also spend some time looking at the MLA Bibliography,
found in the Electronic Databases. You
can access the MLA Bibliography either in the library or over the WWW from the
Jackson Library web site using your UNCG ID.
3) Research presentations
These are scheduled on the syllabus for the end
of the semester. During these
presentations, you will deliver a short version of your essay to your
classmates, with time allowed for discussion.
Each student will also serve as a respondent to another student's paper.
Important Resources
UNCG's special
collections will be unavailable while a new heating and air conditioning system
is installed. This is especially
unfortunate given our library's fine collection of self-culture materials. If special collections open on time
(estimated April 15), we will try to schedule a visit to the archives at the
end of the semester. In the meantime,
there are a number of electronic resources that you will find useful for
delving into rare primary materials.
Other resources are identified on my website.
Wright's American
Fiction,
1851-1875 (1,752 digitized texts)
http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/web/w/wright2/
American Antiquarian
Society Exhibition: A Woman's Work
is Never Done
Images from the
society's collection of women at work, from the Revolution to the Industrial
Revolution
http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Womanswork/
The Making of America: Digitized primary sources from
nineteenth-century America (esp. useful for searching periodicals)
Journal Finder: 10,500 electronic full-text academic
journals, available by entering your UNCG identification number