EH231 American Literature I 26SU Syllabus JGJones

Department of Languages and Literature, The University of West Alabama

Instructor: Greg Jones

Email: [email protected]

Office Phone: 205-652-3752

Office: Wallace Hall 108A

Cell Phone:  601-513-1833

OFFICE HOURS

MTWH 8:30 AM - 11:00 AM or by appointment scheduled through course GroupMe

COURSE DESCRIPTION Survey of American literature from its earliest beginnings to 1865. Prerequisite: "C" or above in EH 102 or EH 104. Credit: three semester hours.

COURSE OBJECTIVES Students who successfully meet the requirements for this course should

• become acquainted with American literary history from the colonial period through the national and romantic periods by the study of representative works in a variety of genres;
• develop an understanding of characteristic themes and issues treated by American writers of this period;
• develop an appreciation for the multicultural literary voices that make up our nation’s literary heritage;
• understand some of the links between texts studied and their cultural, political, and historical contexts;
• be able to research a literary topic and write a logically organized and well-supported analysis using MLA style;
• gain experience and pleasure in reading, discussing, and writing analytically about literary texts.

COURSE CONTENT A broad survey of developments in American literature from first encounter to the American Civil War, this course attempts to provide an overview of the multi-vocal texture of early American culture as embodied in our national literature(s). We will attend to a democratic cacophony of voices—voices of high and low culture, of North and South, of Eastern refinement and Western wilderness, of European, African, and Native American cultural bloodlines, voices inflected with the accents of New England Puritans and Southern planters, of working people both white and black, some free, some in bondage. We will consider what it means to be an American, what we mean by the “American Dream,” what the idea(s) or concept(s) of “America” seems to suggest, how Americans have imagined and written themselves and their culture into being, how American literature—really, United States literature—positions itself as a unique national literary canon. Sampling the full register of American literary voices is impossible in a single semester; this course is intended as an introduction to a large and diverse field of literature.

REQUIRED TEXTS AND CLASSROOM SUPPLIES The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter, V.1 10th Edition ISBN: 9780393264524

Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter, Volume 1 - With Access | University of West Alabama Official Bookstore

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