American Renaissance: The Birth of Environmental Consciousness

elective courses

The class is an intensive course taught by visiting professor Steven Frye (UCB). The meetings are going to take place twice a week, for 2 weeks in October and 2 weeks in November.

Meetings:

- October (2nd half): online meetings on Zoom, on Mondays and Tuesdays in the afternoon (4:45-7:15)

- November (6-20): in-person meetings at Dobra 55 on Mondays and Tuesdays in the afternoon (4:45-7:15)

Blended learning

In this course, we will focus on major works of the “American Renaissance.” We will explore how American authors attempted to establish what Emerson called “an original relation to the universe” by adapting European ideas and forms to new settings and situations in America. We will examine the influence of these early nature writers on an environmental consciousness that later emphasized land preservation, sustainability, and human cooperation with the natural world. Our goal will be to understand the period itself and to comprehend its pervasive influence on the literary and environmentalist ethos of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In this course, we will focus on major works of American Romanticism from the era referred to by F. O. Matthiessen as the “American Renaissance.” We will explore how American authors attempted to establish what Emerson called “an original relation to the universe” by adapting European ideas and forms to new settings and situations in America. We will examine the influence of these early nature writers on an environmental consciousness that later emphasized land preservation, sustainability, and human cooperation with the material world. We will attempt to understand the diversity of thought operative in the period, as represented in the works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Fuller, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, and Dickinson. The polarities of both “light” and “dark” Romanticism have profound implications in the natural realm. Our goal will be to understand the period itself and to comprehend its pervasive influence on the literary and environmentalist ethos of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will also attempt to understand how ideas originally posited in distinctly intellectual and aesthetic spheres have long-term implications in political and social discourse as well as social transformation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature (1836)

“The Poet”

Henry David Thoreau

Walden: “Economy,” “Brute Neighbors”

Walden: “Sounds,” “Higher Laws”

“Resistance to Civil Government”

Margaret Fuller

Selections from Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Walt Whitman

“Preface to the 1855 Edition of Leaves of Grass”

Selected Sections from “Song of Myself” (1881 Edition). Not the 1855 Edition.

“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”

“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”

Edgar Allan Poe

“Ligeia”

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Preface to the House of Seven Gables”

“Young Goodman Brown,”

“Rappaccini’s Daughter,”

“My Kinsman, Major Molineux”

Emily Dickinson

“Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant”; “Much Madness is divinest Sense”; “These are the days when Birds come back”; “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church;” “My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun,” “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers,” “Of all the Souls that stand create,” “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” “This world is not conclusion”

Herman Melville

“Hawthorne and his Mosses”

Selected Chapters from Moby-Dick

Knowledge

Students will be able to:

- K_W01 - Identify and characterize on an advanced level the place and status of American Renaissance studies

- K_W02 - Describe on an advanced level the current trends in American Renaissance studies

- K_W03 - Identify the essential issues, main methods and theories in research in the realm of American Renaissance studies

- K_W04 - Characterize on an advanced level the principles of research design in literary and culture studies with special focus on the application of methods and tools in formulating research problems in the realm of American Renaissance studies

Abilities

Students will be able to:

- K_U01 - Apply advanced terminology and notions pertinent to the discipline of American Renaissance studies

- K_U03 - Apply knowledge obtained during the course of studies to account for and solve a problem, thereby completing a research task related to American Renaissance studies and the discipline of literary studies and/or cultural studies

- K_U04 - Analyze literary and cultural phenomena as expressed in American Renaissance studies and draw generalizations on their basis in the context of societal, historical and economic factors on an advanced level

- K_U06 - Find information in various sources and critically assess its usefulness for research related to the topic of the MA project and the final assignment

- K_U07 - Use modern technology in the process of learning and communicating with academic teachers, colleagues, representatives of various institutions and fellow participants in classes and projects, applying various channels and techniques of communication

- K_U08 - Participate in group projects, collaborate with others and be a team leader in conducting collaborative research, doing groupwork, and preparing the final assignment

Social competences

Students will be ready to:

- K_K02 - Apply knowledge and skills obtained during the course of studies to undertake lifelong learning in the realm of American Renaissance studies

- K_K03 - Take responsibility for performing one’s professional duties, with due respect for the work of others, obey and develop the ethical norms in professional and academic settings related to course and the discipline of American Renaissance studies, literary studies, and cultural studies

- K_K05 - Participate in academic and cultural undertakings in the realm of American Renaissance studies offered via various media

- K_K06 - Value cultural heritage and cultural diversity as well as individual opinions as exemplified in American Renaissance studies

Education at language level C2

One oral presentation on an individual author

Five-page take-home final exam

3 absences are allowed

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