Course No: 350:642
Index #: 19054
Distribution Requirement: A4, C, D
Thursdays - 2:00 pm
MU 207
19th Century Hemispheric Literatures
Soto, Evelyn
This seminar familiarizes students with hemispheric approaches to nineteenth-century American literature, with a particular emphasis on race and empire. Together, we will conceptualize the formation of “American” literature as a multiplicity of cultural, spatial, and political geographies. We will ask: How do diverse authors connect Anglo-American, Latin American, and Caribbean worlds and peoples? In what ways can we re-think the Americas through intersecting histories of empire and literary imaginaries resistant to imperial power? The scope of our class discussions will reflect the uneven temporalities of colonialism, slavery, and revolution in the Americas that circulate throughout the nineteenth century. Topics encompass comparative histories of race in the hemisphere; the literary production of the Haitian Revolution and the U.S.-Mexico War; and travel writing in the Americas. Theory and criticism will encompass transnational methodologies, theories of translation, and archival theory. Major theoretical works may include CLR James, The Black Jacobins; David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity; Michel Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past; Kirsten Silva Gruesz and Susan Gillman, “The Hemispheric Text Network”; Laura Lomas, Translating Empire; and others.
Students will prepare and present 1-2 writing responses on the assigned readings to co-facilitate discussion. A final paper proposal of 3-5 pages and a final draft of 12-15 pages will demonstrate your ability to incorporate theoretical and critical readings in your own research.