2:30p-3:45p TR (30) 3 cr.
American publishing experienced unprecedented, exponential growth
during the first half of
the nineteenth century. An emerging market economy, widespread
religious revival, reforms
in education, and innovations in print technology worked together to
create a culture
increasingly formed and framed by the power of print. While debates
raged about whether the
United States even had its own literature, other debates concerning
American printed
material appeared as well. In the cultural turbulence of the first
half of the nineteenth
century when Catharine Beecher stood as just one of many voices
proclaiming that the very
survival of the United States depended on the existence of virtuous
citizenry, a wide range
of individuals debated just what Americans should conceive to be
virtuous thought and
behavior. This course will examine these debates on morality and
ethics through the
examination of the most popular works of fiction and non-fiction to
appear in the first six
decades of the nineteenth century. There will be frequent reading
quizzes and both shorter
and longer papers.
Texts may include:
Course Packet
The Norton Anthology of Literature, Vol. I (5th ed.)
Hope Leslie by Catharine Maria Sedgwick
Quaker City by George Lippard
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper