Notes: This course surveys US literature from the colonial encounter through the end of the 19th century. Where traditional surveys of this period would focus exclusively on the dominant intellectual movements of American history and culture, this course will consider the formation of the U.S. as a discontinuous, ongoing experiment. Some central questions we will take on are: How was this writing shaped by a history of occupation and colonialism? What defines ‘national’ literature, and how is it bolstered by the expansion of print culture? How can these literary texts help us think about race, gender, and class, particularly as they relate to the formation of an ‘American’ identity? How might we situate the literature of what would eventually become the United States in relationship to literature of the Americas more broadly? We will explore a variety of genres and forms, including travel narratives, religious and political texts, letters, autobiographies, poetry, and fiction. Writing assignments/exercises, a presentation, and group discussions should be anticipated. Writers studied may include: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, William Bradford, Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, Francis E.W. Harper, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, José Martí, Maria Ruiz de Burton, and Helen Hunt Jackson