Course Description

Nathaniel Hawthorne, a major antebellum American writer known for his fictional explorations of colonial America, has been a key figure in American literary studies for many generations. Many important American writers have been influenced by and have responded to his short stories and novels; many influential American literary critics have made an engagement with his works a central part of their careers. Recently, postcolonial writers and critics have shown an interest in rereading and rewriting Hawthorne. In this course, we will explore the postcolonial dimensions of Hawthorne, using both historical and comparative methods.

Course Outline

Course Goals

• Students will gain an understanding of and begin to participate in debates over the term _"postcolonial_" and within/over the field of Postcolonial Studies, including its relation to American Studies.
• Students will gain an understanding of and practice in using historical approaches to analyzing Hawthorne_'s major short stories.
• Students will gain an understanding of and practice in using comparative approaches to analyzing the relations between Hawthorne_'s novel The Scarlet Letter and at least one postcolonial novel in dialogue with it.

Course Texts

Please purchase Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, plus at least one of the following (students will choose which one [or more] to purchase):

• Maryse Conde, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
• Toni Morrison, Beloved
• Bharati Mukherjee, The Holder of the World

Short stories and critical essays will be made available at no cost through on-line sources, including the SUNY Fredonia course ANGEL space I have created for you and the online journals to which the Kyushu University library provides you access.

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 course ANGEL space. Another third of your grade will be based on a research-based presentation on a relation between a work or works by Hawthorne and by the postcolonial novelist of your choice. The final third of your grade will be based on a research paper (7-10 pages) due at the end of the semester.

Course Instructor

The salutatorian of Clinton High School_'s Class of 1987 and co-valedictorian of Hamilton College's Class of 1991, Bruce Simon went on to earn his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of English at Princeton University, where he was a teaching assistant in English and Afro-American Studies and an instructor in the Princeton Writing Program. A former co-general editor of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, he has published essays in The Politics of Information (2004), The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States (2nd ed., 2001), Postcolonial Theory and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature (2000), and Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century (1997). As an assistant and now associate professor of English at SUNY Fredonia, he has taught courses in American, African-American, and world literature as well as in Multiethnic Studies and American Studies. With a sabbatical leave from SUNY Fredonia from fall 2006 to spring 2007 to enable him to serve as a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Kyushu University and Seinan Gakuin University, he stepped down as Vice President for Academics of the Fredonia chapter of the SUNY faculty/professionals union, Chair of the university_'s Planning and Budget Advisory Committee, Associate Chair of the English Department, and University Senator. In addition to teaching courses in American Literature and American Studies in Fukuoka, Japan, he is currently working on a book manuscript, American Studies and the Race for Hawthorne, co-editing two collections of critical essays, tentatively entitled Echoes of Nuremberg and Trauma, Melancholia, and the Politics of Race, and preparing a conference paper on Paule Marshall and Mahasweta Devi. For further information about the instructor, please see his web site at http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introductions, Goals, Expectations (17 October 2006). We_'ll be getting to know each other and familiarizing ourselves with the set-up of the course.

Week 2: Definitions, Debates, Processes (24 October 2006). We_'ll be considering various perspectives on the meaning, purpose, and stakes of American Studies and Postcolonial Studies, in order to clarify the particular focus and emphases of this course.

Week 3: Colonial Spaces (31 October 2006). We_'ll be reading Hawthorne_'s _"Roger Malvin_'s Burial_" and _"Wakefield_" in order to explore his representations of wilderness/city oppositions and their stakes.

Week 4: Puritans and Their Others (7 November 2006). We_'ll be reading Hawthorne_'s _"Young Goodman Brown_" and _"The Maypole of Merry Mount_" in order to explore his representations of Puritans_' responses to difference and their stakes.

Week 5: Rewriting American Colonial History (14 November 2006). We_'ll be reading Hawthorne_'s _"Old News,_" which focuses on slavery, in order to further explore his representations of African Americans and their stakes for American nationalism in the revolutionary, early national, and antebellum periods. If you have time, please also read _"Main-Street,_" which focuses on Indian removals, to continue the discussions of Hawthorne and Native Americans begun the previous two weeks.

Week 6: Marking, Mixing, Gendering (28 November 2006). We_'ll be reading Hawthorne_'s _"The Birth-mark_" in order to explore his representations of the construction of femininity and their stakes. If you have time, please also read _"Rappaccini_'s Daughter_" for another take on this topic, this time with a focus on mixing rather than marking.

Week 7: The Custom-House and the Prison Door (5 December 2006). We_'ll be discussing Hawthorne_'s representation of the circumstances of composition for The Scarlet Letter and other issues in _"The Custom-House_" and comparing his representation of Puritan society in the opening chapters of the novel with those from the tales from Unit 2. We_'ll also try to imagine what postcolonial critics and writers would do with Hawthorne_'s focus on the institutions of the national custom-house and the colonial prison in his first novel.

Week 8: Transatlantic Hester (12 December 2006). We_'ll be discussing various aspects of Hawthorne_'s treatment of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter; of her relation to earlier female figures in Hawthorne_'s fiction; of her relation to Sethe from Morrison_'s Beloved; and of her use by Mukherjee and Conde in their novels.

Week 9: Chillingworth in/and/as the Wilderness (19 December 2006). We_'ll be discussing various aspects of Hawthorne_'s treatment of Roger Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter; of his relation to earlier male figures in Hawthorne_'s fiction; of his relations with characters from Morrison's Beloved; and of his use by Mukherjee and Conde in their novels.

Week 10: Pearl, Dimmesdale, and the Problem of/with Purity (9 January 2007). We_'ll be discussing various aspects of Hawthorne_'s treatment of Pearl and Reverend Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter; of their relation to earlier figures in Hawthorne_'s fiction; of their relation to characters from Morrison_'s Beloved; and of their use by Mukherjee and Conde in their novels.

Week 11: The Badge, the Brand, the Tombstone (23 January 2007). We_'ll be discussing various aspects of Hawthorne_'s treatment of the scarlet letter itself in his first novel; of its relation to earlier symbolic figures in Hawthorne_'s fiction; of its relation to symbolic figures from Morrison_'s Beloved; and of the use of such figures by Mukherjee and Conde in their novels.

American Literary Studies: Postcolonial Hawthorne, Kyushu University, Fall 2006
Created: 10/17/06 3:00 pm
Last modified: 1/9/07 12:42 am
Webmaster: Bruce Simon, Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in American Studies, Kyushu University and Seinan Gakuin University and Associate Professor of English, SUNY Fredonia