BOOKS:
Arthur, Timothy Shays, The Hand But Not the Heart
Fern, Fanny, Ruth Hall
Rowson, Susanna, Charlotte Temple
Showalter, Elaine, Ed., Alternative Alcott
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Uncle Tom's Cabin
Warner, Susan, The Wide Wide World
ON RESERVE:
Baym, Nina, Woman's Fiction
Baym, Nina, Novels, Readers, and Reviewers
Brodhead, Richard, Cultures of Letters
Coultrap-McQuin, Susan, Doing Literary Business
Gilmore, William, Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life
Kelley, Mary, Private Woman, Public Stage
Radway, Reading the Romance
Tompkins, Jane, Sensational Design
Wilson, Figures of Speech
HOW THE COURSE WORKS
The seminar will focus on the process by which popular novels came to dominate the American scene in the 19th century. We will explore texts, producers, and consumers from a variety of angles: How were books manufactured? How were they written? What sorts of careers were open to their authors? Who read them, and for what purposes? What can we learn from the themes and plots of such popular novels? Each student will become an "expert" on one of the authors. Your job will be to report background information about your area of expertise on several occasions. In the process, you will write two short papers (roughly 5 pages) and one longer essay at the end of the semester--an in-depth cultural analysis of a l9th-century text.
Week 1 (Jan. 18) Introduction: What can we learn from books, and how?
Week 2 (Jan. 25) A new world of books
Rowson, Charlotte Temple (be sure to read Davidson's introduction, too)
Week 3 (Feb. 1) New readers
Gilmore, Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life, chs. 1, 3, and 6, and pp. 29269
Week 4 (Feb. 8) New writers
Wilson, Figures of Speech: Washington Irving, William Lloyd Garrison;
Nissenbaum,"Introduction to the Scarlet Letter"
Week 5 (Feb. 15)
The industrial book: visit to Special Collections
Assignment #1 due (reports on authors)
Week 6 (Feb. 22) New books for new women: "Domestic" fiction
Baym, Woman's Fiction, ch.2, *'The Form and Ideology of Women's Fictions
Warner, The Wide Wide World, chs. 1-6
Week 7 (Mar. 1)
Warner, The Wide, Wide World
Week 8 (Mar. 8) The cultural agenda
Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
Week 9 (Mar. 15)
Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
--Spring Break-
Week 10 (Mar. 29) Gender and authorship
Coultrap-McQuin, ch. 1, "Why Try a Writing Career?;" Kelley, ch. 6, "No Happy
Woman Writes; " Fanny Fern, introduction, and begin Ruth Hall
Week 11 (Apr. 5) Gender and authorship
Fern, Ruth Hall
Week 12 (Apr. 12) Gender and authorship
Timothy Arthur, The Hand But Not the Heart
Week 13 (Apr. 20) Readers and markets
Assignment #2 due
Week 14 (Apr. 27) High, Middle, and Low Brow
Brodhead, "Starting out in the 1860s;" "Work" in Alternative Alcott
Week 15 (May 3)
Showalter, ed., Introduction, and "Behind a Mask" in Alternative Alcott
Assignment #1: Authors
Assignment #3