COURSE REQUIREMENTS We have no textbook Your

COURSE REQUIREMENTS • We have no textbook. Your main guide to understanding American Literature will be my lectures, so you must attend class regularly. I will check. If you do not attend class regularly, you will not be permitted to take the exam. • We will work very closely with individual texts in English. You will be assigned texts to read in English for each class. You must bring the English texts to class and be prepared to discuss them. • My habit of instruction is to intersperse my lecture with questions directed sometimes to the class in general, sometimes to individual students. I will keep track of how well you respond in terms of understanding the material. Students who consistently demonstrate poor preparation for class will not be permitted to take the exam. STRUCTURE OF THE CLASS • Films and Power. Point presentations will be used. You are responsible for the material in them as well as for my oral comments. • A list of Terms/Concepts will be provided at the beginning of each class. You will be responsible for a good understanding of the term, for being able to define it, discuss how it is related to American Literature and provide an example.

CONCEPTS AND TERMS FOR TODAY CHANGING UNDERSTANDING OF LITERATURE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF LITERARY VALUE ESSENTIALIST CONCEPT OF IDENTITY CONSTRUCTED IDENTITY NEGOTIATED IDENTITY PROBLEM OF ‘NATIONAL CHARACTER’ CULTURE MASTER NARRATIVE AND COUNTER-NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS SHAPING THE EMERGING AMERICA

AMERICAN LITERATURE: An Open Question

What is LITERATURE? An Open Question

NEWSPAPERS BEST-SELLERS PAMPHLETS LAWS LETTERS SPEECHES DIARIES LITERATURE Latin, littera “letters”, hence anything made of letters, written…. but WHY are things written, and FOR WHOM?

What is an AMERICAN? Again, an Open Question

НАРОД НАЦИЯ ЭТНИOC Essentialist View: the defining features of essentialism is the belief that race or gender reflects a deep biological essence and that the group studied is an already constituted, coherent group , identified prior to analysis as socially or biologically homogeneous, with identical interests, desires, cognitive properties, for example: All women are emotional; all African-Americans have rhythm; all Native Americans are spiritual. Constructionist View: proposes that all identities, majority or minority, national or local, constructed around race, gender, religion, etc. -are imagined; they are "fictive"; they mutate; they are mobilized and "negotiated“ on site, that is, in performance. Analogous to the distinction: SEX vs. GENDER ETHNICITY AS CULTURAL “OTHERNESS” • Other than Who • Other How • Other Why

Amerigo [Vespucci] uncovering America… Once called , it is always aroused Negotiating Identity: Amerigo Vespucci and Indians 1630 Engraving by Theodore de Galle

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS ‘NATIONAL CHARACTER’ ? The notion of ‘national character’ is understood in one of two ways: a) all the people of the same ‘ethnicity’ or b) all the people of the same country share some common values and perhaps behaviors. Apart from the statistical problems embedded in these generalizations, both suffer from the same weaknesses of any “essentialist” conception: there is no scientific evidence for any connection between genetics and cultural behaviors WHAT IS THE NOTION OF ‘NATIONAL CHARACTER’ BASED ON? Perceptions of cultural difference that are ‘popular’, in both senses of the word (a) ordinary and uncritical , as well as (b) ideologically attractive WHY, THEN, IS THE CONCEPT OF ‘NATIONAL CHARACTER’ SO POPULAR? • Provides persuasive, shortcut non- explanation appealing to those who also believe • It’s simple, avoids the need to account for historical or other data WHAT MUST REPLACE IT? A critical understanding of social and personal identity as • historical constructed, • locally mobilized and • always negotiated.

What is CULTURE? functions and meanings of all components are interrelated A set of general guides that still need individual interpretation normative ideas that are held to be true beliefs assessments of good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate and values generally agreed to by the group shared by a group which guides motivating, rationalizing and providing dis/satisfaction for action (saying, making, doing) the behavior of individuals in the group by those who in varying degrees and ways participate towards their environment, the objective field beyond the individual material ecological and physical context of action and social interpersonal, intergroup and institutional context of action CULTURE is the name we give to the INTELLECTUAL TOOLBOX different groups develop in order to adapt to their physical and historical environment.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS SHAPING THE EMERGING AMERICA PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT • Good hardwood forests readily accessible for markets • Land good for farming • Land rich in minerals and underground resources • Navigable rivers • Isolated by two oceans from foreign aggression SOCIOCULTURAL ENVIRONMENT • High literacy rate for colonists; rapid development of public schooling • English language and British cultural traditions and forms dominate • Immigration brings other talents, traditions and languagesfrom abroad • Indians and African slaves as “outsiders” • Diversity breeds mixing and innovation, but also • Intolerance and Discrimination LEGAL ENVIRONMENT • British legal tradition • Protection for and encouragement of private land property ownership • Federalism based on experience of local (colonies/states) differences • Guarantees of basic individual rights limit the powers of government • Division of government powers limits the power of the executive • Written constitution to manage stable transitions of government from one president’s administration to the next.

America is not an accomplished fact. It cannot ever be. It is always an experiment about how to realize in the public sphere the harmonious integration of the different dreams of its citizens. LITERATURE IS THE PUBLIC SPACE WHERE CONTESTING VISIONS AND VOICES MEET.

LITERATURE AND SOCIETY January 20, 1961 INAUGURATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY as President of the United States

Robert Frost reading his poem “The Gift Outright”

The Gift Outright MASTER NARRATIVE The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people. She was ours In Massachusetts, in Virginia, But we were England's, still colonials, Possessing what we still were unpossessed by, Possessed by what we now no more possessed. Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found out that it was ourselves We were withholding from our land of living, And forthwith found salvation in surrender. Such as we were we gave ourselves outright (The deed of gift was many deeds of war) To the land vaguely realizing westward, But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, Such as she was, such as she would become.

January 20, 1961 INAUGURATION of BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA as President of the United States

How America Was Discovered According to Chief Cornplanter- Handsome Lake taught that America was discovered in the manner here related. A great queen had among her servants a young minister. Upon a certain occasion she requested him to dust some books that she had hidden in an old chest. Now when the young man reached the bottom of the chest he found a wonderful book which he opened and read. It told that the white men had killed the son of the Creator and it said, moreover, that he had promised to return in three days and then again forty but that he never did. All his followers then began to despair but some said, “He surely will come again some time. ” When the young preacher read this book he was worried because he had discovered that he had been deceived and that his Lord was not on earth and had not returned when he promised. So he went to some of the chief preachers and asked them about the matter and they answered that he had better seek the Lord himself and find if he were not on the earth now. So he prepared to find the Lord Counter-Narrative

and the next day when he looked out into the river he saw a beautiful island marveled that he had never noticed it before. As he continued to look he saw a castle built of gold in the midst of the island he marveled that he had not seen the castle before. Then he thought that so beautiful a palace on so beautiful an isle must surely be the abode of the son of the Creator. Immediately he went to the wise men and told them what he had seen and they wondered greatly and answered that it must indeed be the house of the Lord. So together they went to the river and when they came to it they found that it was spanned by a bridge of gold. Then one of the preachers fell down and prayed a long time and arising to cross the bridge turned back because he was afraid to meet his Lord. Then the other crossed the bridge and knelt down upon the grass and prayed but he became afraid to go near the house. So the young man went boldly over to attend to the business at hand walking up to the door knocked.

A handsome man welcomed him into a room and bade him be of ease. “I wanted you, ” he said. “You are a bright young man; those old fools will not suit me for they would be afraid to listen to me. Listen to me, young man, and you will be rich. Across the ocean there is a great country of which you have never heard. The people there are virtuous; they have no evil habits or appetites but are honest and single-minded. A great reward is yours if you enter into my plans and carry them out. Here are five things. Carry them over to the people across the ocean and never shall you want for wealth, position or power. Take these cards, this money, this fiddle, this whiskey and this blood corruption and give them all to the people across the water. The cards will make them gamble away their goods and idle away their time, the money will make them dishonest and covetous, the fiddle will make them dance with women and their lower natures will command them, the whiskey will excite their minds to evil doing and turn their minds, and the blood corruption will eat their strength and rot their bones. ”

The young man thought this a good bargain and promised to do as the man had commanded him. He left the palace and when he had stepped over the bridge it was gone, likewise the golden palace and also the island. Now he wondered if he had seen the Lord but he did not tell the great ministers of his bargain because they might try to forestall him. So he looked about and at length found Columbus to whom he told the whole story. So Columbus fitted out some boats and sailed out into the ocean to find the land on the other side. When he had sailed for many days n the water the sailors said that unless Columbus turned about and went home they would behead him but he asked for another day and on that day land was seen and that land was America. Then they turned around and going back reported what they had discovered. Soon a great flock of ships cam e over the ocean and white men came swarming into the country bringing with them cards, money, fiddles, whiskey and blood corruption. Now the man who had appeared in the gold palace was the devil and when afterward he saw what his words had done he said that he had made a great mistake and even he lamented that his evil had been so enormous.

CONCEPTS AND TERMS FOR TODAY CHANGING UNDERSTANDING OF LITERATURE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF LITERARY VALUE ESSENTIALIST CONCEPT OF IDENTITY CONSTRUCTED IDENTITY NEGOTIATED IDENTITY PROBLEM OF ‘NATIONAL CHARACTER’ CULTURE MASTER NARRATIVE, COUNTER-NARRATIVE, ALTER-NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS SHAPING THE EMERGING AMERICA