Cultural Encounters in Early America, 1492-1650

English 4371

Fall 2005, TTh 9:30-10:50, 201 Hyer Hall

Prof. Michael Householder

16 Dallas Hall, x82950

TTh 1-2, W 12-2 and by appt.

Course description: What happened to Europeans’ conception of the world and their place in it when they first became aware of the existence of America? How did they view the indigenous people? How did indigenous peoples respond to their arrival? What role did writing and literature play in recording these encounters and shaping how future generations thought about first contact and its consequences?

This course surveys literary responses to the social, political, cultural, economic, and intellectual changes wrought on both sides of the Atlantic as a result of the English colonization of North America, from first contact to the burgeoning settlements of New England in the mid-seventeenth century.  Although many of our readings will focus on English ventures and texts, and on familiar figures and events (e.g., the “lost colony” of Roanoke, John Smith and Pocahontas, the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving) we will also read some less familiar texts, including some by writers who were not English, or who never even traveled to the Americas, to help understand the origins and significance of these cultural icons.

The course is, by necessity, dependent on a certain awareness of history and geography. That said, this is a literature course. Above all, we will be attending to how these encounters are represented through language, how that language was received and understood by its various audiences, and how key linguistic features (e.g., words and phrases, images, tropes, narrative structures) were replicated and adapted by different authors for a variety of purposes in a variety of contexts. This last point signals a need for caution as we approach these texts: even as we strive to make broad claims about entire cultures or historical periods, we must recognize and preserve the heterogeneity and historical specificity of the material.

Such caution is necessary because of the symbolic significance of these stories. Many understand colonization of America as the triumphant discovery and civilizing of a savage, technologically primitive race. Others view it as a brutal invasion and conquest by nations motivated by simple greed and justified by racism, resulting in the catastrophic genocide of virtually an entire race of people. Reading these texts will not necessarily resolve the difference in these views. Reading the texts out of which these understandings have been created, however, will makes us more aware of how some of these powerful and persistent myths first organized themselves and how we might create different, perhaps more accurate and/or satisfying, understandings for ourselves.

Required texts (available at SMU Bookstore):

John Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (Penguin)

J. M. Cohen, ed., The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Penguin)

Thomas More, Utopia, in Three Early Modern Utopias (Oxford)

Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Penguin)

Peter Mancall, ed., Envisioning America (Bedford)

Karen Kupperman, ed. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings (UNC Press)

William Shakespeare, The Tempest (Oxford)

* Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Applewood; order on-line)

Recommended texts (available at SMU Bookstore):

Richard Hakluyt, Voyages and Discoveries (Penguin)

Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions (Chicago)

Karen Kupperman, Indians & English: Facing Off in Early America (Cornell)

Course Expectations: 4000-level seminars are designed to be intensive and demanding. Please expect to read approximately 200 pages each week on average. It is essential that everyone come to class fully prepared to discuss the assigned reading. To help you prepare for class discussions, I will be offering occasional short writing assignments to be submitted by e-mail prior to class. In addition, because this is an upper-division course, you will be expected to complete a substantial essay (approximately 12 pages) designed to introduce you to the principles and methodologies of literary research.

Class discussion (5%)

Shorter homework assignments (5%)

Shorter 3-5 page essay assignments (30%)

Mid-term examination (15%)

Final examination (15%)

12 page research paper (30%)

Schedule of Assignments:

Aug. 18 Thursday	First Day of Class. First Contact: Some Definitions; Introduction to the Course
Aug. 23 Tuesday	Prior models for contact: pilgrimage and crusading. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, 43-130.
Aug. 25 Thursday	Narrating Discovery: Monsters and Marvels. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, 131-90. View woodcuts from 16^th century editions of Mandeville. Recommended: Greenblatt, 26-51 (available at bookstore or on reserve).
Aug. 30 Tuesday	What makes the New World “new”? “Letter of Columbus” (115-23), “Digest of Columbus’ Log-Book” (37-77), “The Letter of Dr. Chanca” (129-57), all in The Four Voyages. Recommended: Greenblatt, 52-85 (available at bookstore or on reserve).
Sept. 1 Thursday	The “New World” as Alternative Reality. Thomas More, Utopia. Recommended: Susan Bruce, “Introduction” (ix-xxvii).
Sept. 6 Tuesday	The “New World” as Satiric Looking-Glass. Montaigne, “Of Cannibals” (on-line). Brief response paper due (see 9/1 lecture).
Sept. 8 Thursday	Translating Empire. Richard Eden (trans.), Sebastian Münster’s A Treatyse of the Newe India. (on-line)
Sept. 13 Tuesday	The Black Legend and Its Impact on the English Colonial Enterprise. Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Recommended: Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, ch. 3 (on reserve).
Sept. 15 Thursday	Of Ice and Cannibals. George Best, A True Discourse of the three Voyages…of Martin Frobisher (on-line). Recommended: Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, ch. 1 (on reserve).
Sept. 20 Tuesday	The Invention of Race. George Best, A True Discourse of the three Voyages…of Martin Frobisher (on-line); “Postmortem report by Dr. Edward Dodding…on the Inuit Eskimo man brought by Frobisher” (on-line). Recommended: Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, ch. 4 “Kidnapping Language” (available at bookstore or on reserve).
Sept. 22 Thursday	Essay #1: Critical Case Study. [How to get started.] Myra Jehlen, “History before the Fact; or, Captain John Smith’s Unfinished Symphony,” Critical Inquiry 19:4 (Summer 1993), 677-92. Peter Hulme, “Making No Bones: A Response to Myra Jehlen,” Critical Inquiry 20:1 (Autumn 1993), 179-86. Myra Jehlen, “Response to Peter Hulme,” Critical Inquiry 20:1 (Autumn 1993), 187-91. All available on-line at http://www.jstor.org/.
Sept. 27 Tuesday	Theories of Conquest, Conversion, and Commerce. Richard Hakluyt (the elder), “Inducements to the Liking of the Voyage Intended towards Virginia (33-44); Richard Hakluyt (the younger), “Discourse of Western Planting” (45-61); George Peckham True Report of the Late Discoveries…by…Sir Humphrey Gilbert (62-70). All pages refer to Mancall, ed. Envisioning America. Recommended: prefatory and dedicatory material in Richard Hakluyt’s Voyages and Discoveries (31-40); Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood, 150-91 (on reserve).
Sept. 29 Thursday	Theory Meets Practice: Roanoke. Arthur Barlowe, The first voyage made to the coasts of America (on-line). Working draft for critical case study due at beginning of class (bring four copies). Schedule peer conferences for 10/3 and 10/4 (peer conference guide).
Oct. 4 Tuesday	Recording Encounters. Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, in Mancall, ed., Envisioning America (71-106). Visit to DeGolyer Library to view Theodor de Bry’s Grand Voyages.
Oct. 6 Thursday	Representing Native America. Harriot, A Briefe and True Report, cont’d. Recommended: Kupperman, Indians & English (1-76). Critical case study due.
Oct. 11 Tuesday	Fall Break
Oct. 13 Thursday	Midterm examination. Introduce essay #2: Identifying your own critical controversies. [Sample annotation.]
Oct. 18 Tuesday	Authority and Order. William Strachey, A True Repertory of the Wreck (on-line).
Oct. 20 Thursday	Disobedience and Degeneration. George Percy, A Discourse of the Plantation of the Southern Colonie of Virginia (112-26); Anonymous, A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia (127-32). Both in Mancall, ed., Envisioning America. Topic consultations must be completed by Friday, October 21.
Oct. 25 Tuesday	Power, Authority, and Colonial Discourse. Shakespeare, The Tempest acts 1-3.
Oct. 27 Thursday	Slavery and Magic in a Brave New World. Shakespeare, The Tempest acts 4-5. Recommended: Peter Hulme, Colonial Encounters, 88-134 (on reserve). Essay #2 due.
Nov. 1 Tuesday	Economic Literacy in Virginia. John Smith, A Select Edition (81-192). Brief response paper due (see 10/27 lecture).
Nov. 3 Thursday	Pocahontas, Captivity, and National Identity. John Smith, A Select Edition (57-73). Recommended: Kupperman, Indians & English (77-109). Introduce Research Paper.
Nov. 8 Tuesday	Violence and the Founding of the American Dream. Edward Waterhouse, A Declaration of the State of the Colony in Virginia (on-line). John Smith, A Select Edition (239-52).
Nov. 10 Thursday	Encounter in New England. Mourt’s Relation (3-38). Recommended: Kupperman, Indians & English (110-173).
Nov. 15 Tuesday	Diplomacy in New England. Mourt’s Relation (38-96).
Nov. 17 Thursday	Puritan Justifications. John Winthrop, “Reasons to be Considered for Justifying the Undertakers of the Intended Plantation in New England” (Mancall 133-9); John Cotton, God’s Promise to His Plantation (on-line). Kupperman, Indians & English (174-240).
Nov. 22 Tuesday	From Encounter to Settlement in New England. William Wood, New England’s Prospect (Mancall 149-68).
Nov. 24 Thursday	Thanksgiving – University Holiday
Nov. 29 Tuesday	Conclusion: Why Study First Contact?. Peer Conference Sessions scheduled throughout the week
Dec. 7 Wednesday	Research paper due
Dec. 10 Saturday	Final Examination