Cultures in Contact in the colonial Americas:

Bodies, Knowledge, Empires

 

Description:

In this Independent Studies seminar, we will explore texts written in and about the colonial Americas from the point of view of the contact and interaction of cultures, bodies, germs, and systems of knowledge. Some of the key concepts that we will be concerned with include “encounter”, “discovery”, “semiosis,” “mestizaje,” and “creolizaton.”

 

Requirements:

Participation in and preparation of weekly discussions. One full-length publishable paper.

 

Grading:

Participation and preparation: 30%

Semester paper: 50%

Book review: 20%

 

 

Schedule:

 

Part I: Renaissance, Encounter and Conquest

 

Week I: Discovery

Primary:

Christopher Columbus, Diario of the first voyage; Letter to Santangel; Letter from the Fourth Voyage

Jacques Cartier, Narrative from the Second Voyage

Thomas Harriot, A Brief and True Report; and John White/Theodor de Bry, Water colors and engravings

 

Secondary:

From Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions

From Peter Hulme, Colonial Encounters

From Anthony Grafton, New Words, Ancient Texts

 

 

Week II: Conquests

Primary:

From Hernando Cortés, Letters

From Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Brief History of the Destruction of the Indies and Apologetic and Summary History

Álaver Núnez Cabeza de Vaca, The Account

 

Secondary:

From Alfred Crosby, Biological Imperialism

From Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America

From Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man

 

 

Week III: Colonial Semioses

Primary:

From Leon Portilla, ed, The Broken Spears

Titu Cusi Yupanqui, An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru

From Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, First New Chronicle and Good Government

 

Secondary:

From Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance

From Serge Gruzinski, Painting the Conquest

From F. Cervantes, et. al, Spiritual Encounters.

 

Part II: Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Empire

 

Week IV: British American Cultural Encounters

Primary:

From John Smith, The General History of the Virginia, The True Relation, and A Map of Virginia

From William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

From Thomas Morton, New English Canaan

 

Secondary:

Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America

Matt Cohen, "Morton’s Maypole and the Indians"

From William Cronon, Changes in the Land

 

 

Week V: Creole Knowledge in the Americas: Baroque Poetry

Primary:

From Bernardo Balbuena, The Grandeur of Mexico

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Primero Sueño

Anne Bradstreet, selected poetry

Edgard Taylor, Selected Poetry

 

Secondary:

Jacques Lafaye, from Qutzalcoatl and Guadelupe

Octavio Paz, from Sor Juana, or the traps of faith

Stephanie Merrim, “Sor Juana Criolla and the Mexican Archive: Public Performances”

Carlos Jáuregui, “Cannibalism, the Eucharist, and Criollo Subjects”

 

Week VI: Baroque, Identity and Alterity

Primary:

Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez,

Catalina de Erauso, Lieutenant Nun

 

Secondary:

From Kimberly Lopez, Identity and Alterity in the Emergence of a Creole Discourse

 

 

Week VII: Creole Knowledge in New England

Primary:

• Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World

• Trial documents relating to Tituba, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Susanna Martin

   

Secondary:

• From Jim Egan, Authorizing Experience

• Susan Parrish, “The Female Oppossum and the Nature of the New World.”

• Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed

   

 

Part III: Enlightenment and Empire in the Americas

 

Week VIII: Creole Knowledge in the Chesapeake

Primary:

• William Byrd, History of the Dividing Line

• Ebenezer Cooke, The Sot-Weed Factor

Secondary:

• Jim Egan, "The colonial English Body as Commodity"

• Susan Scott Parrish, "William Byrd II and the Crossed Languages of Science, Satire, and Empire in British America"

 

Week IX: Creole Knowledge in the Chesapeake and the British Caribbean

Primary:

• Dr. Alexander Hamilton, Itinerarium

• Dr. Alexander Hamilton, from The History of the Ancient and Honorable Tuesday Club

• From James Grainger, The Sugar Cane

Secondary:

• Jim Egan, "The 'Long'd-for Aera' of an 'Other Race': Climate, Identity, and James Grainger's The Sugar-Cane"
• Rober Micklus, "The Delightful Instruction of Dr. Alexander Hamilton's Itinerarium "
• from David Shields, Civial Tongues and Polite Letters in British America

 

Week X: Race and the Politics of Creole Knowledge

 

Primary:

Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

 

Secondary:

From Dana Nelson, The Word in Black and White

From Jared Gardner, Master Plots

 

Week XI: Writing the Self in the Contact Zone

Primary:

Mary Rowlandson, The True History

Unca Eliza Winkfield, The Female American

Samson Occom, A Short Narrative of My Life

 

Secondary:

Katherine Zabelle Derounian, "The Publication, Promotion, and Distrbution of Mary Rowlandson's Indian Captivity Narrative"

From Christopher Castiglia, Bound and Determined

Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse, "The American Origins of the English Novel" 

Week XII

Discussion of Semester Projects

 

Week XIII

Discussion of Semester Projects

 

Week XIV

Discussion of Semester Projects