5:45P-7:00P  MW  (40) 3 cr

This course will address not only a literary content (specific works of American fiction), but the
category of "American Fiction" itself.  What is the rationale for reading eighteenth and
nineteenth century literature written on United States soil as the elements, or exemplars, of a
specifically national literary tradition?  How are issues of nationality at stake in the literary texts
themselves?  The course will focus on selected texts of early national, antebellum and
reconstruction era fiction, with emphasis on the way these texts participate in a series of ongoing,
public debates on the delineation of "Americanness."  We will consider how diverse writers of
fiction, differently situated by virtue of gender, race and class affiliations, stake claims to cultural
authority and speak to questions of citizenship, democracy, slavery, family, collective memory
and national interests.

Assignments:
The primary written work for the course will consist of approximately fifteen pages of critical
writing, distributed across two to four essays.  (Class members will be able to choose among
several writing schedules).  In addition, I anticipate frequent short writing assignments (of 1-2
pp), produced in-class, between classes, or electronically (over e-mail).  All class members are
expected to assume responsibility for class discussion; this means that regular and active
participation is required.

Course Materials:
Frances Harper, IOLA LEROY (Oxford University Press)
Harriet Jacobs, INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL (Harvard UP)
Henry James, THE TURN OF THE SCREW (Penguin)
Sarah Orne Jewett COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS (Signet)
Herman Melville, BILLY BUDD AND OTHER STORIES (Penguin)
Susanna Rowson, CHARLOTTE TEMPLE (Oxford UP)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (Penguin)
Mark Twain, PUDD'NHEAD WILSON (Norton)
In addition, a variety of short fiction (by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane,
Fredrick Douglass) and of critical essays (by, among others, Cathy Davidson, Michael Warner,
Joan Dayan, Lauren Berlant, Valerie Smith, Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Michael Rogin) will be
available on reserve at the main library.