230583 Emancipation Discourses in 19th Century American Culture: Aesthetics, Race and Gender (S) (WiSe 2006/2007)

Various social, cultural and aesthetic calls for independence infuse 19th century literary discourses in the United States with a spirit of making it new. These calls emerge from a rivalry between the young American nation and Europe and from intracultural dynamics and tensions based upon gender and race differences. This seminar will focus on three major categories --aesthetics, race and gender--to explore links between political and aesthetic independence in essays, poetry and short fiction. Among others we will read and discuss texts by R.W. Emerson, E.A. Poe, Margaret Fuller, Frederick Douglas, Walt Whitman, Kate Chopin, and Susan Perkins Gilman. Most texts will be made available in a reader that students should buy and bring to seminar sessions; please buy a copy of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (any edition) in addition to the reader.