Studies in American Literature (378-0-22)
Topic
19th-C Amer Wmn Auteurs, Black and White
Instructors
Julia Ann Stern
847/491-3530
University Hall Room 415
Office Hours: Mondays 1:1:50; Tuesdays 10-11; and Thursdays 12:20-1
Meeting Info
University Hall 118: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
This course will begin and end with the two greatest sentimental novels written in American literary history: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Stowe's work frames our conversation as we then explore the enslavement narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Elizabeth Keckley, and the fictionalized autobiographical novels of enslavement and Black child indentured servitude by Hannah Crafts and Harriet Wilson. Elizabeth Stoddard's The Morgesons completes our reading list. Stoddard's book is formally radical novel that pioneers a narrative voice close to the work of the modernists. She is the Emily Dickinson to write fiction, it would sound like Stoddard's work.. Questions we will ponder involve the intersection of racial trauma and literary form, the novel as polemic, and the way that an African American women's canon emerged in vigorous response to and critique of Stowe's transformative novel.
Evaluation Method
Two take-home close reading exams (2 pages each) and a final project or essay that may involve the analysis of a classic Hollywood or contemporary film version of Little Women or a more recent depiction of enslavement and freedom such as 12 Years a Slave.
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
SDG Reduced Inequality
SDG Peace & Justice
SDG Gender Equality