English 651
Prof. Jackson
holly.jackson@umb.edu
Wheatley 6-022
19th-Century American Literature: Family, Nation, Narrative
This graduate seminar considers the role of kinship and courtship narratives in the articulation of
American nationalism in nineteenth-century print culture. In contrast to the commonplace view of
the early United States as puritanically repressed and conformist, this course reveals that the
American novel is singularly fascinated with family decline, sexual taboos, and national
crisis. From Revolutionary-era inheritance laws to fin-de-siècle eugenics, we will consider anxiety
about the institution of the family as a constitutive element of American national identity and
American literature. How do representations of the family reflect and shape nationalism? How
and why do literary works reinforce or disrupt the prevailing connections between family, race, and
nation?
Primary Texts – paper copies required in class
Michel Foucault, Introduction to the History of Sexuality. Vol 1. [0679724699]
William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy [0140434682]
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables [9780375756870]
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin [0375756930]
William Wells Brown, Clotel; Or, The President’s Daughter 0312152655
Constance Fennimore Woolson, “Old Grandison” (wiki)
Anna Dickinson, What Answer [1591020506]
Kate Chopin, “Desiree’s Baby” (wiki)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland [1420930672]
Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona [0451528425]
Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs [037575671X]
Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition [0140186867]
Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood [0743467698]
Assignments
Contributions to class discussion: 10%
Presentation on secondary sources with annotated bibliography: 10%
Analytical presentation: 10%
Essay 1 (5-7 pages): 20%
Final essay (15 pages): 50%
Accommodations
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 offers guidelines and support for curriculum
modifications and adaptations for students with documented disabilities. If applicable, students
may obtain adaptation recommendations from the Ross Center for Disability Services, CC-22100, 617-287-7430. The student must present these recommendations and discuss them with
each professor within a reasonable period, preferably by the end of Drop/Add period.
Academic Integrity / Plagiarism
Students are required to adhere to the University Policy on Academic Standards and Cheating,
to the University Statement on Plagiarism and the Documentation of Written Work, and to the
Code of Student Conduct as delineated in the Catalog of Undergraduate Programs. The Code is
available online at: http://www.umb.edu/life_on_campus/policies/code/
Every bit of work that you turn in for this class should be your own. Please consult a style guide
on the proper citation of sources or contact me if you find yourself in doubt. Be careful about
even basic Internet searches: Generating your own ideas in response to the assigned
readings should be your fundamental goal in this course; please resist the urge to look
elsewhere for information or inspiration.
Course Policies
* Bring printed copies of your written work to the class meetings indicated in the course
calendar as due dates. Always use 12-point Times New Roman font with one-inch margins
and double spacing. There should be page numbers in the upper right hand corner starting on
the second page of everything you turn in, and take the time to locate a stapler or paper clip
for your work before class. I will not accept e-mail submissions of papers.
* In fairness to the class, I may choose not to accept written work after the due date or to
accept it with a grade penalty. One extended deadline per student will be granted if
negotiated before the due date.
*You cannot pass this class if you do not complete all of the assignments.
* ATTENDANCE: You may miss one seminar meeting (one week of class) for any reason
with no grade penalty. Additional absences will result in a final grade penalty and
eventually failure in the course. Habitual tardiness will lower your participation grade.
*All electronic devices, including laptops and cell phones, should remain off in the
classroom. Silence your phone and remove your headphones before class begins; texting in
class is not permitted. Please procure paper copies of all assigned texts; no electronic books,
Kindles, etc., will be permitted in class.
*A number of your assigned readings will be distributed electronically. You are required
to bring a printed copy to class.
*I will communicate with the class using your UMB email addresses. If you do not check
this account frequently, please have your messages forwarded to your primary account. You
are responsible for information conveyed by email and through the course Wiki, so make
sure you can successfully access both of these, starting on the first day of the semester.
*I encourage you to schedule one-on-one meetings with me to discuss writing assignments
and your progress in the course. This is the best way to receive instruction tailored to your
individual needs.
Course Calendar
Week 1: Jan 29
Introductions
Excerpts from John Winthrop, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and others
Sign up for presentations
Week 2: Feb 5
Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1 (excerpt)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (excerpt)
Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims (excerpt)
Week 3: Feb 12
Brown, The Power of Sympathy
Jurgen Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (excerpt)
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 4: Feb 19
Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (preface through chapter 9)
Daniel Webster, A Discourse, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820
Excerpt, Alexis DeTocqueville, Democracy in America (1837)
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 5: Feb 26
Finish Seven Gables
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 6: March 5
Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (through chapter 18)
Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs (excerpt)
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 7: Mar 12
Finish Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Kerber, “The Republican Mother”
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 8: Mar 19 – SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS MEETING
Week 9: Mar 26
Brown, Clotel
Hortense Spillers, “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe”
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 10: April 2
Dickinson, What Answer?
Woolson, “Old Gardiston”
Silber, The Romance of Reunion (introduction and chapter 2)
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 11: Apr 9
Jackson, Ramona
Kaplan, “Manifest Domesticity”
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 12: Apr 16
Gilman, Herland
Chopin, “Desiree’s Baby”
Theodore Roosevelt, “National Life and Character” (1894), “Duties of
American Citizenship” (1883), “On American Motherhood” (1905).
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 13: Apr 23
Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
Edelman, No Future (excerpt)
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 14: Apr 30
Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition
Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property”
Analytical presentation:
Secondary sources presentation:
Week 15: May 7
Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood
Secondary sources presentation:
*7-10 pages due by Monday, May 13 at 9am to instructor and peer reviewer*
Week 16: May 14
Seminar paper workshop
FINAL ESSAYS DUE MAY 20, 9am
Additional Secondary Texts
Week 2:
Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel
Shirley Samuels, Romances of the Republic
Week 3:
Elizabeth Barnes, States of Sympathy (Chapters 1 and 2)
Elizabeth Dill, “The Damned Mob of Scribbling Siblings”
Brian Connolly, “Liberalism’s Incestuous Subject”
Week 4:
Mintz and Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions (chapter 3)
Weil, “John Farmer and the Making of American Genealogy”
Michael Grossberg, Governing the Hearth (chapter 1)
Orth, “After the Revolution”
Week 5:
Anthony, “Class, Culture, and the Trouble with White Skin”
Goddu, “The Circulation of Women”
Smith, American Archives (chapter 1)
Trachtenberg, “Seeing and Believing”
Week 6:
Arthur Riss, “Racial Essentialism and Family Values in Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
James Baldwin, “Everybody’s Protest Novel”
Marianne Noble, The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature (chapter four)
Week 7:
Crane, Race, Citizenship, and Law
Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Dependent States
Robin Bernstein, Racial Innocence
Week 9:
Castronovo, Fathering the Nation
Sterling Brown and Eva Saks in Interracialisms, Werner Sollors, Ed.
Forgie, Patricide in a House Divided
DuCille, “Where in the World is William Wells Brown”
Josiah Nott and George Gliddon, Types of Mankind (1854)
Dred Scott v. Sanford decision (1857)
Week 10:
Blight, Race and Reunion (prologue and chapter 7)
Young, Disarming the Nation: Women’s Writing and the American Civil War
Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation
Blum, Reforging the White Republic
Week 11:
Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America
Gonzalez, “The Warp of Whiteness”
Week 12:
Lovett, Conceiving the Future
Weinbaum Wayward Reproductions
Seitler, “Unnatural Selection”
Berg, Mothering the Race
Newman, White Women’s Rights
Week 13:
Fetterley and Pryse, Writing Out of Place
Foote, Regional Fictions
New Essays on The Country of the Pointed Firs, Ed. June Howard
George N. Miller, The Strike of a Sex (1891)
Week 14:
Frederick Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (1896)
Plessy v. Ferguson decision (1896)
Week 15:
Wilson J. Moses, The Golden Age of Black Nationalism
Claudia Tate, Domestic Allegories of Political Desire
Augusta Rohrbach, “To Be Continued…”
Susan Gillman, Blood Talk
Assignments
Analytical Presentation and Essay 1:
*Read and annotate your assigned literary text carefully, generating as many potential essay topics
and ideas for class discussion as possible.
* Craft a 10-minute presentation of the idea that you intend to explore in your essay. You are not
responsible for “coverage” of the entire work or for commenting on any assigned reading except for
the primary literary text.
You might begin by providing any background information on the author, work, genre, or historical
context that you believe will help your classmates better understand the text or your argument.
Most of your presentation should be devoted to exploring one focused idea: Why is this topic
interesting and significant? What is your working thesis? What is your best textual evidence to
support this idea? Direct our attention to 2 or 3 passages in the text for close reading. Keep in mind
that a strong thesis statement must be original and surprising, an angle other readers might not have
considered. DO NOT SUMMARIZE the work – assume that it is fresh in the minds of your
audience and dive right into analysis.
You should be well-prepared, easy to follow, and engaging. Your classmates should learn
something from your presentation and be inspired to discuss the ideas you introduced for the next
20 minutes of class. Listen closely and take notes on the class discussion and your instructor’s
feedback during this time so that you can shape and revise your essay idea accordingly.
*You will submit a 5-7 page analytical essay one week later at the following class meeting. See
the “Writing Tips” handout for essay guidelines and formatting. Your essay may utilize 1 or 2
secondary sources if it will enhance your argument.
Presentation on Secondary Sources with Annotated Bibliography:
*Survey the critical literature related to your assigned text. This should include the recommended
texts on the syllabus, a search of the MLA bibliography database for peer-reviewed articles, and
also relevant scholarly books. Choose the three texts that you found most interesting or helpful.
Write an annotated bibliography in MLA style to submit on the day of your presentation.
*In your 10-minute presentation in class, DO NOT SUMMARIZE the secondary sources. Your
goal is to understand the texts thoroughly and present your classmates with focused information that
you think will advance their understanding of the text at hand or of a related aspect of literary
studies that will enhance the discussion. If the texts are not direct readings of the primary work,
explain how we might apply the secondary material. You might provide commentary on how the
sources relate to each other, what debates animate criticism on this work, how the sources taken
together have influenced your understanding of the text. You may give all three equal time, or you
may quickly state the arguments of two and devote most of your time to a fuller treatment of one.
Focus on clearly presenting the big ideas, not getting hung up on the details.