ENG-329 Inventing America
This course explores the making of "America"
(focusing primarily on the United States) through
literature, from the age of discovery through the
post-Revolutionary period. Our primary purpose is
to explore the means by which settlement and
national identity were invented through language.
Our texts feature a range of "literature,"
including transcribed Native American oral
stories, colonial promotional tracts, sermons,
speeches, captivity narratives, political
pamphlets, personal letters, and slave
narratives. The class will explore personal and
cultural issues that concerned early Americans
and discuss how texts both define and complicate
some of the terms associated with the literature
of this period, including "colonist," "Puritan,"
"Enlightenment," "liberty," and even "America"
itself.(Literature Seminars)
Prerequisites: 200-level Introduction to Literary
Studies course (any version).