Christoph Irmscher
phone: 443-622-3277 and by
appointment
office hours: W 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. in BH 417 and by
appointment
L632
Readings in 19th C American Literature & Culture
MW 1:25-2:40 in the Ellison (M) and
Ball Room (W), Lilly Library
Course
description:
The nineteenth-century saw the
large-scale devastation of the North American continent: the inexorable
shrinking of wild spaces; the relentless extermination of species; the
no-holds-barred diminishment of other natural resources in the course of
settlement. Along with the vanishing "Indian," American nature seemed
to have vanished, too. But, paradoxically, the century also saw the emergence
of a genre sometimes considered unique to U.S. American literary history,
nature writing. (We will look at some Canadian examples that challenge this
exceptionalist view.)
This reading
course will focus on that central irony. We will ask ourselves whether or not
we are right in considering "nature writing" a genre at all; how its
priorities might or might not differ from that of other (fictional and
non-fictional) genres; how gender inflects forms of representation; how the
genre changes over the course of the century under the impact of changes in
scientific paradigms; and how urban environments affected conceptions of
“American” nature. Our readings will include some modern practitioners of the
genre, too, and we will look at parallel developments in other media, such as
the shift from painting to photography in the documentation of the natural
environment (W. H. Jackson, Carleton Watkins, George Barnard, Eadweard
Muybridge).
Authors to be
read will include some central 19th-century texts by authors such as John James
Audubon, Susan Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau,
Herman Melville, and Mary Austin, as well as by some lesser-known writers such
as Catharine Parr Traill and Gene Stratton-Porter. (We will be using
inexpensive paperback editions or electronic resources). All our sessions will
take place at the Lilly Library.
Course requirements will include
two in-depth class preparations; a series of four reading responses to be
posted to the course blog (www.susanfenimorecooper.blogspot.com); a 10-page
critical paper or edition of a source in the collections of the Lilly, due
around the middle of the semester; and a final project (which may be
collaborative). Ideally, the paper and
project topics will emerge from our discussions in the class, but I will make
lists available well ahead of the posted deadlines. Class participation counts for 30% of your
final grade. The reading responses make up 10% (they are ungraded and have no
specific deadlines, but must be completed by the end of the semester), and the
critical paper 30%. The final
project—which may deal with any our readings but can expand into other areas of
inquiry such as painting or photography—makes up the final 30% of your
grade. A “project” is different from a
critical paper in that it may be collaborative (as long as the individual contributions
are clearly marked) and in that it need not need to be super-polished. Instead, it should advance a provocative
thesis, a new idea, or new insights based on original research that you have
done related to our readings, using the collections of the Lilly, the IU Art
Museum, or resources and archives available online.
The usual
rules for classroom etiquette apply. Please
apprise me of any emergencies that might adversely affect your participation in
the course as they arise, not later on.
Texts to be purchased:
Thoreau, Walden, Dover, 978-0486284958
Carson, Silent Spring, Mariner Books
978-0618249060
Cooper, Rural Hours, U of Georgia Press
Mary Austin, Land of Little Rain, Modern
Library 978-0812968521
Melville, Moby-Dick, Dover, 978-0486432151
Emerson, Nature, Dover 978-0486469478
Stratton-Porter,
Girl of the Limberlost, IU Press
All texts are
available at the non-profit Friends of Art Bookstore in the School of Fine Arts
(right across from the Lilly). If you
care about the future of the book, don’t purchase your textbooks at the B&N
Bookstore in the Union.
Schedule
of readings:
01/07 Introduction to the
course
01/09 Audubon, introduction
to the plates (at Lilly Library)
Additional
reading: Audubon, “My Style of Drawing
Birds” (oncourse)
01/14 Audubon, “The
White-headed Eagle” (from Ornithological Biography)
Audubon,
“The Great-footed Hawk” (from Ornithological
Biography)
Audubon,
“The Carolina Parrot” (from Ornithological
Biography)
Audubon,
“The Passenger Pigeon” (from Ornithological Biography)
James
Fenimore Cooper, chapter XXIII from The
Pioneers
Audubon,
“Ivory-Billed Woodpecker” (from Ornithological
Biography)
Audubon,”Common
Gannet” (from Ornithological Biography);
All
available through the course blog.
01/16 Audubon, cont.
01/21 MLK Day—no class
01/23 Emerson, Nature, Name: Travis Shaw; Emerson at the Lilly
01/28 Emerson, cont.; begin Susan Fenimore
Cooper, Rural Hours:
"Spring", Name: Jessica George
01/30 "Summer"; Name: Mary Bowden
02/04 Cooper, Rural Hours. Cooper’s sources
"Autumn", Name: Brooke Opel; "Winter", Name:_____________
02/06 guest
instructor: Joel Silver, Curator of
Books, The Lilly Library
02/11 Cooper, Rural Hours, wrap-up, lterature on Cooper
02/13 begin Thoreau, Walden (“Economy,” Name:_______;
“Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Name:_______);
the first ed.of Walden
02/18 Thoreau, Walden (“Reading”, Name:______;
“Sounds”, Name:________ ;
“Solitude”, Name:______;
“Visitors,” Name:_______);
Thoreau
letters in the Lilly (Name:______)
02/20 Walden (“The Bean-Field", Name:________
"The Ponds”, Name:______;
“Baker Farm", Name:_______;
“Higher Laws”; Name:_______;
"Brute Neighbors”; Name:_______;
"House-Warming”; Name:_______;
"Former
Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors”;Name:_______;
"Winter Animals”; Name:_______;
"The Pond in Winter”; Name:_______)
02/25 Thoreau, Walden
(“Spring”; Name:_______;
“Conclusion", Name:_______ )
02/27 Catharine Parr Traill
and Agnes FitzGibbon,
Canadian Wild
Flowers, plates I-V,
03/04 Traill/FitzGibbon, Canadian Wild Flowers, plates VI-X.
Available at
Name: Jessica George
03/06 Critical plant
studies; excerpts from Pollan, The Botany
of Desire
,
03/11
and 03/13 Spring Break
03/18 begin Melville, Moby-Dick, chapters I-XXI,
Name: Hiromi Yoshida (any chapter)
Name: Hiromi Yoshida (any chapter)
03/20 Moby-Dick, chapters XXXII, XLII, LII, LV, LVI, LVII;
Name:_______ (any chapter)
Name:_______ (any chapter)
03/25 Moby-Dick, chapters LXI, LXIV, LXV,
LXVI,LXXIV, LXXV, LXXXVI, XCIV,
XCV, XCVI, XCVII, CIII-CVI;
Name:_______ (any chapter)
LXVI,LXXIV, LXXV, LXXXVI, XCIV,
XCV, XCVI, XCVII, CIII-CVI;
Name:_______ (any chapter)
03/
27 Melville, CXV,
CXVI, CXXVIII, CXXXI, CXXXIII-CXXXV;
critical paper due.
critical paper due.
04/01 Mary Austin, Land of Little Rain;
Name: Brooke Opel;
Name: Brooke Opel;
04/03 Nineteenth-century
nature photography
04/08 Austin, Land of Little Rain
04/10 Stratton-Porter, Girl of the Limberlost, pp. 1-121;
Name: Hiromi Yoshida
Name: Hiromi Yoshida
04/15 Stratton-Porter, Girl of the Limberlost, pp. 121-353,
04/17 Girl of the Limberlost, pp. 354-479
04/22 (tentative) excursion
to the Limberlost Swamp or Goose Pond
04/24 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Final research project due by 05/03
Final research project due by 05/03
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