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Versions of Pastoral
ENGL277 SP

Crosslistings: AMST210

Settlement and wilderness, city and country, civilization and the Territories, nature and culture, machines and gardens, ecocriticism--from colonial times to the present, writers of all kinds--farmers, explorers, naturalists, novelists, anthropologists, essayists, poets, scholars, and critics--have sought or invented versions of pastoral arcadia in North America. Why reimagine a Grecian paradise in Kentucky? Why people a Georgia valley with dryads and nymphs? Why build a cabin at Walden Pond or spend a season at Tinker Creek? Why move to the suburbs or vacation in the bosom of Nature? These are some of the questions we will try to answer in this course on the place of the pastoral in U.S. literature, culture, and criticism.

MAJOR READINGS

Literary texts by Crevecoeur, Jefferson, Filson/Boone, Bartram, Emerson, Thoreau, Jewett, Wharton, Hemingway, Hurston, Frost, Snyder, Silko, Abbey. Critical and historical texts by D.H. Lawrence, Leo Marx, Henry Nash Smith, Annette Kolodny, Lawrence Buell.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Frequent short papers and a final project.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course in an American Studies Junior Colloquium. Permission of Instructor forms will be distributed to Junior AMST majors on a first-come, first-served basis through noon on Thursday, November 4. If there is still space, others will be admitted beginning at that time.

Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: NONE

Last Updated on MAR-24-2000

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