American Literary Counter-Voices

This seminar complements and supports the lecture course 'American Literature Since 1497' and it is strongly recommended that students follow both the course and the seminar in the same semester.

The seminar puts into question the cultural, political, and social work performed by the canonical texts of the American literary tradition by attending to significant 'minority' voices: notably, gendered, regional, and racialized voices. Issues that will be discussed include: Native responses to English colonization and the westward expansion of the United States, African-American accounts of slavery, Chicano/a and Asian literary interventions concerning immigration, and women's writing and feminism. These counter-voices question and critique the foundational values of the US Republic, while challenging the dominant narrative of national formation promoted by the canonical American literary tradition.