“What then is the American, this new man?” asked J. Hector St-John …
“What then is the American, this new man?” asked J. Hector St-John de Crèvecoeur in his Letters from an American Farmer in 1782. This subject takes Crèvecoeur’s question as the starting point for an examination of the changing meanings of national identity in the American past. We will consider a diverse collection of classic texts in American history to see how Americans have defined themselves and their nation in politics, literature, art, and popular culture. As a communications-intensive subject, students will be expected to engage intensively with the material through frequent oral and written exercises.
This subject is devoted to reading and discussing basic American historical texts …
This subject is devoted to reading and discussing basic American historical texts that are often cited but often remain unread, understanding their meaning, and assessing their continuing significance in American culture. Since it is a “Communications Intensive” subject, 21H.105 is also dedicated to improving students’ capacities to write and speak well. It requires a substantial amount of writing, participation in discussions, and individual presentations to the class.
This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the …
This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the “good life” through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.
This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the …
This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the “good life” through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.
This lesson extends over several class periods. Students analyze the claim, grounds, …
This lesson extends over several class periods. Students analyze the claim, grounds, warrants, qualifiers and counterclaims in three articles about the American Dream. Students conduct research and find two additional articles about the American Dream. Students then analyze the argument in those articles. Finally, students write their own argument essay about the current state of the American Dream.
This website is devoted to exploring American fascination with Egypt and its …
This website is devoted to exploring American fascination with Egypt and its history. Primary Source documents can be found by browsing the Historical Sources page or by searching through the advanced search page. Secondary literature that addresses topics such as art & architecture, history, literature, religion, and science can be browsed through the scholarship page. The web resources page contains a list of helpful websites related to the topics of the site and the search page is an advanced search that allows users to search for specific items and articles.
American Encounters provides a narrative of the history of American art that …
American Encounters provides a narrative of the history of American art that focuses on historical encounters among diverse cultures, upon broad structural transformations such as the rise of the middle classes and the emergence of consumer and mass culture, and on the fluid conversations between "high" art and vernacular expressions. The text emphasizes the intersections among cultures and populations, as well as the exchanges, borrowings, and appropriations that have enriched and vitalized our collective cultural heritage.
We don’t want to deluge you with information on the subject, but …
We don’t want to deluge you with information on the subject, but this week on Crash Course Mythology, Mike Rugnetta is talking once again about floods. We’re looking at ancient flood myths in the Americas, and what they can tell us about the stories that people tell, and how they can look similar, even in cultures separated by large swathes of time and space. We’ll talk about floods from Mayan and Aztec traditions, and as always, see if we can find something in these tales that gives us some insight into what it means to be a human.
This course examines the causes and consequences of American foreign policy since …
This course examines the causes and consequences of American foreign policy since 1898. Course readings cover both substantive and methods topics. Four substantive topics are covered:
major theories of American foreign policy; major episodes in the history of American foreign policy and historical/interpretive controversies about them; the evaluation of major past American foreign policies–were their results good or bad? and current policy controversies, including means of evaluating proposed policies.
Three methods topics are covered:
basic social scientific inference–what are theories? what are good theories? how should theories be framed and tested? historical investigative methodology, including archival research, and, most importantly, case study methodology.
Historical episodes covered in the course are used as raw material for case studies, asking “if these episodes were the subject of case studies, how should those studies be performed, and what could be learned from them?”
In this unit students gain an understanding of the elements of gothic …
In this unit students gain an understanding of the elements of gothic literature as evidenced in four short stories: The Raven (Poe), The Masque of the Red Death (Poe), The Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman), and the Lottery (Jackson). Vocabulary is included for each story. Lessons focus on using text evidence to support analysis for tone, diction, inferencing, character analysis, author's purpose, and irony. Lessons include both independent and small group work, shorter writing tasks, small and large group discussion, and other opportunities for instructors to differentiate the lesson to suit classroom needs.
This course examines the social, cultural, political, and economic history of the …
This course examines the social, cultural, political, and economic history of the United States, from the Civil War to the present. It uses secondary analysis and primary documents, such as court cases, personal accounts, photographs, and films, to examine some of the key issues in the shaping of modern America, including industrialization and urbanization, immigration, the rise of a mass consumer society, the emergence of the US as a global power, and the development of civil rights activism and other major social movements.
This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political …
This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political development from the colonial period through the Civil War. It examines the colonial heritages of Spanish and British America; the American Revolution and its impact; the establishment and growth of the new nation; and the Civil War, its background, character, and impact. Readings include writings of the period by J. Winthrop, T. Paine, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, W. H. Garrison, G. Fitzhugh, H. B. Stowe, and A. Lincoln.
This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political …
This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political development from the colonial period through the Civil War. It examines the colonial heritages of Spanish and British America; the American Revolution and its impact; the establishment and growth of the new nation; and the Civil War, its background, character, and impact. Readings include writings of the period by J. Winthrop, T. Paine, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, W. H. Garrison, G. Fitzhugh, H. B. Stowe, and A. Lincoln.
This course studies the national literature of the United States since the …
This course studies the national literature of the United States since the early 19th century. It considers a range of texts - including, novels, essays, and poetry - and their efforts to define the notion of American identity. Readings usually include works by such authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson, and Toni Morrison.
American Literature 2 is a standard post-Civil-War anthology. Heavily adapted from the …
American Literature 2 is a standard post-Civil-War anthology. Heavily adapted from the Lumen course shell original, the book emphasizes well-integrated literary analysis writing and has several chapters focused on MLA and writing.
Abstract American Literature I combines a textbook covering literary analysis and literary …
Abstract American Literature I combines a textbook covering literary analysis and literary critical theory, basic research methods in the humanities, and a chronological reader of diverse selections in American Literature. The book begins with a focus on creation myths and Native American literature. Following this is a significant section on Romanticism. Also included are sections on literary nonfiction, writing about literature, early American and Puritan literature, and Herman Melville.
Description Prior to my adaptation, this course was created from materials originally developed by the State Board of Community Technical Colleges (SBCTC) of Washington State. American Literature 1 is a modified version of the Lumen American Literature I text. The original version of this book was released under a CC-BY license and is copyright by Lumen Learning. The text is designed to accompany a separate novel such as Moby-Dick and contains supplemental resources for the teaching of American novels of this era. The changes to this book listed are released under a CC-BY-SA license and are copyright by Joshua Dickinson of Jefferson Community College in Watertown, NY.
In this class we will practice skills in reading, analyzing, and writing …
In this class we will practice skills in reading, analyzing, and writing about fiction, poetry and drama from a select sampling of 20th Century American Literature. Through class discussion, close reading, and extensive writing practice, this course seeks to develop critical and analytical skills, preparing students for more advanced academic work.
This module on Colonial Literature explore the essential questions: 1) How does …
This module on Colonial Literature explore the essential questions: 1) How does the literature in early Colonial America reflect the customs and beliefs of the Native Americans and Puritans? 2)What kind of literary styles did the earliest writers contribute to American Literature? and 3) How did history have an effect on the types of literature being written? There are audio and visual activities as well as readings.
This work was created as part of the University Libraries’ Open Educational …
This work was created as part of the University Libraries’ Open Educational Resources Initiative at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
A web version of this text can be found at https://umsystem.pressbooks.pub/ala1865/.
This book is an anthology of American Literatures After 1865, a new revision of the open educational resource entitled Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature 1865 to Present. It contains works that have been newly introduced to the public domain and provides direct links to reading materials that can be borrowed for free from Archive.org.
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