America in the 19th Century: Tales of Two Nations

This course surveys the literature from one of the most exhilarating and fraught periods in American history. From 1820 -1860, the United States was a fledgling new nation struggling to forge an identity distinct from Europe and a nation collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. The ideals of freedom and democracy were promised to all but systematically undermined by white supremacy, chattel slavery, and settler colonialism. We explore artistic flourishing through transcendentalism, the critique of the American experiment by Black and Indigenous authors, and literature of reform, culminating on the eve of the American Civil War.