INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN STUDIES: THE MAKING OF AMERICA AND AMERICANS, KYUSHU UNIVERSITY, FALL 2006

M A I N * L I N K S * R E F E R E N C E S

INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN STUDIES:

THE MAKING OF AMERICA AND AMERICANS

Bruce Simon
Fulbright Visiting Lecturer
Fall 2006

Research and Development Center for Higher Education (RDCHE), Kyushu University, Ropponmatsu 4-2-1, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka-shi 810-8560, Japan

092-726-4851 (office); 726-4511 (fax); bsimon@rche.kyushu-u.ac.jp

ANGEL space: https://fredonia.sln.suny.edu

Course Description

This course offers a broad sweep of American literature, history, and politics, with a focus on issues of identity and difference, mission and migration, and regionalism and nationalism. It examines the influences and legacies of 17th-century Puritan theology, 18th-century enlightenment rationalism, 19th-century romantic ideologies, and 20th-century modernist aesthetics on the present-day United States. Throughout, emphasis will be placed on the meanings, significance, and stakes of changing borders of American identities; on close, contextual, and comparative reading; on critical thinking, writing, and speaking; and on connections to and contrasts with Japanese history, culture, and politics.

Course Outline

Unit 1: American? Studies?
Week 1: Introductions, Goals, Expectations (5 October 2006)
Week 2: Definitions, Debates, Processes (12 October 2006)

Unit 2: 17th-Century Puritanism
Week 3: Settler-Native Relations (19 October 2006)
Week 4: Theocracy and Its Discontents (26 October 2006)

Unit 3: 18th-Century Enlightenment
Week 5: Competing Colonialisms (2 November 2006)
Week 6: Constitutionalism and Its Discontents (9 November 2006)

Unit 4: 19th-Century Romanticism
Week 7: Manifest Destinies (30 November 2006)
Week 8: Slavery and Its Discontents (7 December 2006)

Unit 5: 20th-Century Modernism
Week 9: Manifold Migrations (14 December 2006)
Week 10: Modernity and Its Discontents (21 December 2006)

Unit 6: Legacies and Influences

Week 11: (re)Defining America (18 January 2007)

Course Requirements

As this course combines lectures, activities, student presentations, and open, guided, and small-group discussion, regular classroom attendance is very important. One-third of your grade in the class will be based on my assessment of your preparation and participation, both for class and on the SUNY Fredonia ANGEL space I have created for our use. Another third of your grade will be based on a brief group oral presentation, the Your America Project. The final third of your grade will be based on a short research paper (4-6 pages) due at the end of the semester.

Course Schedule

Unit 1: American? Studies?

Week 1: Introductions, Goals, Expectations (5 October 2006). Getting to know each other and familiarizing ourselves with the set-up of the course. Scavenger Hunt: Each student will be emailed the website of a top U.S. American Studies program and will bring to next class print-outs of its program description or mission statement, graduation requirements, and the description and/or syllabus of its introductory course.

Week 2: Definitions, Debates, Processes (12 October 2006). We will consider various perspectives on the meaning, purpose, and stakes of American Studies, in order to clarify the particular focus and emphases of this course. Film clips from Independence Day (1996) and Elizabethtown (2005), along with sharing your results from the previous week’s Scavenger Hunt, will supplement this introductory lecture.

Unit 2: 17th-Century Puritanism

Week 3: Settler-Native Relations (19 October 2006). We will consider classic representations of the Pilgrims and Puritans in American history and the reasons why American history so often is seen as starting with them. Then we will broaden our focus to earlier English and European colonization efforts in the New World and compare patterns in their representations of and relations with natives. As you examine the assigned readings, pay close attention to how the writers represent themselves, their people, and the land and people of Europe and the New World.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): Myra Jehlen and Michael Warner, The English Literatures of America, 1500-1800 3-6, 101-103, 305-307; William Bradford, from Of Plymouth Plantation (1630); John Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity” (1630).

Week 4: Theocracy and Its Discontents (26 October 2006). We will consider the examples of Thomas Morton, Anne Hutchinson, and Richard Saltonstall to explore tensions and diversities within American Puritanism. Then we will broaden the focus to address recent scholarly discontents with a primary focus on Puritan theocracy and attempts to provide alternative narratives of 17th century colonial America. As you examine the assigned readings, pay close attention to how and to what ends the writers represent Puritans and Puritan doctrines.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): Myra Jehlen and Michael Warner, The English Literatures of America, 1500-1800 429-433; Thomas Morton, from New English Canaan (1634); William Bradford, from Of Plymouth Plantation (1650); Ann Hutchinson, from The Examination of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson at the Court of Newtown (1637); John Winthrop, from A Short Story of the Rise, Reigne, and Ruine of the Antinomians, Familists and Libertines (1644); Richard Saltonstall, Letter to the Boston Church (1652); John Cotton, reply to Saltonstall (1652).

Unit 3: 18th-Century Enlightenment

Week 5: Competing Colonialisms (2 November 2006). We will examine such noted figures of the American Enlightenment as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine in order to situate their writings and actions in the context of struggles between the Spanish, French, and British empires in the New World over the course of the 18th century.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): Benjamin Franklin, "Rules by which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One" (1773); Thomas Jefferson, "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America" (1776); Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, #1 (1776).

Week 6: Constitutionalism and Its Discontents (9 November 2006). We will examine classic debates over the ratification of the Constitution, the definition of American citizenship, and the legitimacy of the Louisiana Purchase in order to address such issues as relations between “nation” and “state(s),” tensions between regionalism and nationalism, and the relation between the American Revolution and the French and Haitian Revolutions.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams (1776); An Old Whig IV (1787); A Farmer, Antifederalist No. 3 (1788); Patrick Henry Antifederalist No. 4 (1788); James Madison, The Federalist, #10 (1787); George Mason and James Madison, from the Virginia Ratification Debate (1788); Naturalization Act of 1790.

Unit 4: 19th-Century Romanticism.

Week 7: Manifest Destinies (30 November 2006). We will examine some key moments in 19th-century American expansionism in order to assess the contributions of American romanticism to the theory and practice of American “manifest destiny.” Haga-san, Ide-san, and Ootsubo-san will kick off the “Your America” presentation project with reflections on fast food and America.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): Walt Whitman, “Facing West from California’s Shores” (1860) and “Passage to India” (1871).

Week 8: Slavery and Its Discontents (7 December 2006). We will examine some key moments in 19th-century American abolitionism and anti-abolitionism in order to assess the contributions of American romanticism to the crisis that led to the American Civil War. Kagimoto-san, Maeda-san, and Matsunaga-san will continue the “Your America” presentation project with reflections on slavery and America.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): Angelina Grimke Weld, “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” (1836); Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address” (1863) and “Second Inaugural Address (1865).

Unit 5: 20th-Century Modernism

Week 9: Manifold Migrations (14 December 2006). We will examine multiple migrations--those of immigrants, African Americans, and American Indians to and within America and those of American soldiers to Hawaii, Cuba, and the Philippines--at the turn into the twentieth century and consider the validity and stakes of the argument that American modernism was constituted by these migrations as well as by the shocks of the Civil War and World War I. Ishida-san, Morikawa-san, and Nakashima-san will conclude the “Your America” presentation project with reflections on gospel music and America.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): read at least two works from among Standing Bear, “What I Am Going to Tell You Here Will Take Me until Dark” (1881); Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893); Stephen Crane, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” (1898); Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin), from “Impressions of an Indian Childhood” and “The School Days of an Indian Girl” (1900); Gertrude Stein, from The Making of Americans (1903); Randolph Bourne, “Trans-National America” (1915); W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Souls of White Folk” (1920); Mark Twain, “The War Prayer” (1923); Alain Locke, “The New Negro” (1925).

Week 10: Modernity and Its Discontents (21 December 2006). We will examine brief selections from major American literary movements of the first half of the 20th century--such as the Southern Fugitives/Agrarians, the Harlem Renaissance/Negritude, the multiple modernisms of Frost, Pound, McKay, Williams, Moore, Hughes, Millay, Eliot, Cullen, Crane, Bontemps, Hemingway, and Stevens--in order to assess the variety of American modernism’s responses to the opportunities and dangers of America’s early-20th-century modernization.

Assigned Reading (available on ANGEL space): read poems from at least four different authors from among Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” (1916); Ezra Pound, “A Pact,” “In a Station of the Metro,” and “L’art, 1910” (1916); Claude McKay, “The Harlem Dancer” (1917), “If We Must Die” (1919), “The Lynching,” “Harlem Shadows,” “I Shall Return,” and “America” (1920); William Carlos Williams, “Portrait of a Lady” (1920) and “The Great Figure” (1921); Marianne Moore, “Poetry” (1921); Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1921); Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Spring” (1921) and “The Spring and the Fall” (1923); T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (1922); Countee Cullen, “From the Dark Tower” and “Simon the Cyrenian Speaks” (1924) and “Yet Do I Marvel” (1925); Hart Crane, “Voyages” and “At Melville’s Tomb” (1926); Arna Bontemps, “A Black Man Talks of Reaping” (1927); Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927); Wallace Stevens, “Of Modern Poetry” (1942) and “Of Mere Being” (1955).

Unit 6: Legacies and Influences

Week 11: (re)Defining America (18 January 2007). We will pull together and push further our earlier considerations of the legacies and influences of 17th-century Puritan theology, 18th-century enlightenment rationalism, 19th-century romantic ideologies, and 20th-century modernist aesthetics on the present-day United States this week. There are no assigned readings, but many recommended ones available on the course ANGEL space. We will devote a good portion of class time to workshopping your final project, so please bring as complete a draft as possible to class today.

M A I N * L I N K S * R E F E R E N C E S

Introduction to American Studies: The Making of America and Americans, Kyushu University, Fall 2006
Created: 10/3/06 3:30 pm
Last modified: 1/8/07 11:30 pm
Webmaster: Bruce Simon, Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in American Studies, Kyushu University and Seinan Gakuin University and Associate Professor of English, SUNY Fredonia