Week 7
Feb 18: Read Matthew Carey, selections from A Short Account of the Malignant Fever (photocopy); Absalom Jones & Richard Allen, Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People (photocopy); and William Neill, selections from Plagues and Peoples (photocopy).
Feb 20: Charles Brockden Brown, from Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 (photocopy); John Edgar Wideman, "Fever" (photocopy).
Due February 22: Assignment: Visit Washington Square and its surroundings to get the lay of the land. In the voice of the historical persona you've been assigned, write a two-page (600-word) essay or letter using the following guidelines: It's a late summer morning in 1793. You're standing in front of the Walnut Street Jail at 6th and Walnut Streets. Someone passes by staggering and drops unconscious at your feet. From physical signs on his body, you're pretty sure he's got the fever. What do you do? What else happens to you during the rest of the day and night? It's the next morning: where are you now? Who are you with? Wherever you are, you find you've got an hour or two to record your experiences of the previous 24 hours. Perhaps you write a letter to a friend, or an article for a newspaper, or an entry in your diary; or, if your persona is illiterate, you tell the story to a stranger and he or she transcribes what you say. Whatever form it takes, your response to this assignment should be vivid, detailed, historically informed, and above all consistent with your assigned persona.
Recitation Feb 22: We'll spend this session talking about the week's reading and what you wrote.
Week 8
Feb 25: Midterm Examination.
Feb 27: Read from William Godwin, Caleb Williams (ch. 11-14, photocopy), and from Charles Dickens, American Notes and General Reflections (ch. 7, photocopy). Read Michel Foucault, "Panopticism" (photocopy).
Mar 1: Class Fieldtrip: We will be going to Eastern State Penitentiary as a group. Please be prepared to discuss this week's readings while we're there on site (in other words, bring your texts). We will meet our bus at 36th and Spruce streets at 1:00 p.m.; the bus will be parked on the south side of Spruce. We'll arrive at ESP around 1:30 or 1:45; the tour should be over by 2:45 or 3:00 p.m. The bus will then take us back to Penn. Eastern State Penitentiary is located at 2124 Fairmont Ave.
