The American Literature of Social Action and Social Vision
Eric Cheyfitz profile
T 3-6
This course should engage those interested in exploring the intersections between theory and practice in what I understand as the political work of teaching and writing; those interested in querying from a multicultural perspective the relationship between capitalism and democracy in the history of the Americas from the sixteenth-century to the present; and those interested in a critical reading of the field of American Studies and its generative origin in the ideology of "American exceptionalism." The course will begin by trying to define the dominant ideology of the U.S. through a reading of some genertive documents: John Winthrop's A Model of Christian Charity, Franklin's Autobiography, Tom Paine's Common Sense, The Declaration of Independence, Federalist 10, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (Seneca Falls Convention, 1848), and Jane Addams Twenty Years at Hull House. In conjunction with this material we will read Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Mike Davis's Prisoner's of the American Dream. After this introduction, the course will look at a variety of critiques of the
founding ideology from around the Americas and from the perspectives of race, gender, and class.
Texts to be read will be taken from a list that includes: William Apess, "Eulogy on King Philip"; Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays; Thoreau, Civil Disobedience; Emerson, "Self-Reliance;"; Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Manlio Argueta, One Day of Life; Dorothy Allison, Skin: Talking about Sex, Class and Literature; Michael Harrington, The Other American; Leslie Silko, Ceremony; Nekola and Rabinowitz, Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940; Mary Heaton Vorse, Strike; DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk; Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class; Anne Moody, "Coming of Age in Mississippi"; Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Patricia Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights; Jose Marti, On Art and Literature. In addition to the reading we
will look at three films: Incident at Oglala, Paris is Burning, and Harlan County, USA.
updated 2007-03-14
