English 268 - AmericanLit&CultureBefore1865

In this course we will read narratives of individual and collective cultural transformations from the colonial and early republican periods in American literature. We will trace throughout these narratives various figurations of "American" subjectivity, such as the captive and the redeemed; the slave, the servant, and the freeman; the alien and the citizen; the foreign and the native. Through such textual figures, we will explore as well the cultural production of a broader narrative of the ?imagined community? of the nation. While reading a selective survey of literary works, travel narrative, and poetry from the 1670s through the antebellum era, we will address as well critical and theoretical reconsiderations of the literature and culture of the early republic.