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Literary Influences in
Global Contexts
of American Literature
Senior Colloquium

ENGL3041a
   Spring 2020
   Location: CPD-1.45
    Wednesday: 12:30 pm-2:20 pm

                                            


  Prof. Kendall Johnson
     kjohnson [@] hku.hk
     Office Hours: Tuesday mornings
     from 10-12 and by appointment
     Office: Run Run Shaw Tower 7.43

Course Description and Primary Texts| Course Requirements | Learning Outcomes | Schedule | Electronic (PDF) Files |

NOTE: Links jump to points further down on this page

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course builds to the collaborative reading of three late-twentieth-century novels: Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water (1993), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Bharati Mukherjee’s The Holder of the World (1993). It begins by looking back to earlier authors whose writing echoes in these later works: Mary Rowlandson, Aphra Behn, John Locke, Daniel DeFoe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Jacobs, and Herman Melville. By identifying and assessing literary influences across centuries of global movement the course will consider revisions to philosophical concepts and generic conventions central to the cultural development of the United States. Student presentations will compare and contrast authors’ literary styles and political opinions in building a context for enjoying, analysing, and interpreting the work of King, Morrison, and Mukherjee.


PRIMARY TEXTS: available in the University Bookstore, on Amazon.com, or as PDF files (links are below, in the Course Schedule): ELECTRONIC FILES (.PDF format):

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

In regard to your final grade, the tentative breakdown is: in-class participation (50%) and final paper (50%).

Note: When writing your essays it is important for you to acknowledge through proper citation any secondary sources that you have used. If you borrow someone else's words or ideas be sure to mention this in the body of the essay or in a footnote. Regarding my plagiarism policy and citation procedure, see http://www.hku.hk/amstudy/plag/index.htm.

COURSE OBJECTIVES and LEARNING OUTCOMES:

CLASS SCHEDULE:

WEEK 1
W. Jan. 22:

 Beginnings...

Christopher Columbus's Journal (c. 1492), transcribed by Bartolome de Las Casas, translated into English by Cecil Jane

Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590), Dover

      On-line version (with Theodor DeBry's engravings and John White's water colors)

     Disney's, Pocahontas (1995), First Encounter

Key Words: Empire    |    Doctrine of Discovery   |   Christianity

THE LANDING OF COLUMBUS
AT THE ISLAND OF GUANAHANI, WEST INDIES,
OCTOBER 12, 1492
placed in U.S. Capitol Rotunda in 1847
John Vanderlyn


THE BAPTISM OF POCAHONTAS
AT JAMESTOWN, 1613
placed in the US Capitol Rotunda in 1840
John Gadsby Chapman

No Class
W. Jan. 29 :

Happy New Year

WEEK 2
W. Feb. 5:

 Mary Rowlandson, "Sovereignty and Goodness of God" (1682)

     Compare the two title pages, from Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London



Key Words: Imperialism    |    Colonialism    |    Puritanism

Secondary Reading:
  • Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1954)
  • William Cronon, Changes in the Land : Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England(1983)
  • James Axtell "White Indians of North America" The William and Mary Quarterly 32.1 (Jan. 1975)
  • Nancy Armstrong, Leonard Tennenhouse, The Imaginary Puritan: Literature, Intellectual Labor, and the Origins of Personal Life (University of California Press, 1992).
Class Coordinator:
K. Johnson


EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS
Commissioned 1837; placed 1844
US Capital rotunda, Washington, DC
Robert Walter Weir

WEEK 3
W. Feb. 12:

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko: Or, the Royal Slave. A True History (1688)

Key Words: Slavery    |    Mercantilism    |   Property    |    Commodity

Secondary Reading 		Class Coordinator:
Achilles

WEEK 4
W. Feb 19:

Daniel DeFoe, The Life and Strange and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (1719)

Key Words: Romance    |   Novel 		Class Coordinator:
Achilles

WEEK 5
W. Feb. 26:

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (1782)-- Letters, 1-3, 9, 12

Key Words: Nation   |    Culture    |   Republic

Secondary Reading: 		Class Coordinator:
Emily

WEEK 6
W. March 4:

James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans (1826)
     PDF Vol. 1    |    PDF Vol. 2  |   PDF Vol. 3

Key Words: Indian Removal    |   Manifest Destiny

Secondary Reading:
 Class Coordinators:
TBA


FALLS OF THE KAATERSKILL (1826)
Thomas Cole

No Class
Wed. Mar. 11:

No class -- reading week

WEEK 7
W. Mar. 18:

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlett Letter: A Romance (1850)

Key Words: "American Literature"    |    "American Studies"

Secondary Reading: 		Class Coordinator:
Ashmi

WEEK 8
W. Mar. 25:

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

Key Words: Civil Rights    |    Civil War 		Class Coordinators:
TBA

WEEK 9
W. April 1:

Herman Melville, "Benito Cereno" (1855)

Key Words: Transnational    |    Postcolonial 		Class Coordinator:
Sabrina

WEEK 10
W. Apr. 8:

Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water (1993)

Class Coordinator:
Sabrina

WEEK 11
W. Apr. 15:

Bharati Mukherjee, The Holder of the World(1993)

 Class Coordinator:
Ashmi

WEEK 12
W. Apr. 22:

Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

 Class Coordinators:
Achilles, Emily

WEEK 13
W. Apr. 29:

Wrap-up

FINAL EXAM: prospectus and working bibliography due 30 April; final paper due 29 May