HIS 242. FROM PURITAN DIARIES TO OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB: READERS AND WRITERS IN
AMERICAN HISTORY (3)
Using insights gleaned from various disciplines, this course examines the
history of reading and
writing in America. In particular, we will study how written texts are produced,
disseminated,
and consumed. Topics include: Indians and the discovery of print; the
sentimental novel; slave
narratives; religious readers; the making of an American literary canon; comic
books in modern
America; and, of course, Oprah’s book club. Prerequisites HIS 110 or 111 or
sophomore standing.
Variable semesters. Hale.
NOTE: the following syllabus excerpt is offered for informational purposes only. For future HIS 242 syllabi, please contact Professor Hale directly.
Spring 2009 Professor Hale
T-TH 10:00-11:15AM Email: mhale@goucher.edu
Hoffberger Science G41 Office: Van Meter 132, x6217
Office Hrs: TU-TH 1:00-2:30PM and by appointment
HIS/ENG/AMS 242: From Puritan Diaries to Oprah’s Book Club:
Readers and Writers in American History
Introduction: Course Summary and Objectives
In the past three decades, historians have begun to explore the ways in which the production, dissemination, and reception of printed materials have influenced society and culture. Commonly referred to as the history of the book, this field brings together insights taken from a number of disciplines, including ethnography, literary criticism, anthropology, gender studies, journalism, and education, as well as a number of sub-fields of history, including labor, intellectual, and cultural history. This course will serve as an introduction to this exciting field by concentrating on the American experience from the colonial era to the late twentieth century. Although we will touch on certain theoretical and methodological questions, the major focus of the class will be on applied versions of the history of the book—on what scholars are actually saying about the history of American readers and writers. We will follow a loosely chronological format, pausing occasionally to more closely consider selected topical problems.
Required Readings
Your readings this term will cover a variety of topics and approaches to the history of the book. You will be expected to complete all readings in a timely fashion and to be prepared to discuss them actively in class. It is also expected that you will bring that day’s required readings to class.
Copies of the following required texts are available for purchase in the college bookstore.
1) Tamara Plakins Thornton, Handwriting in America
2) Jay Fliegelman, Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance
3) Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland; or the Transformation
4) Bradford Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America
5) Scott Casper, Joanne Chaison, and Jeffrey D. Groves, eds., Perspectives on American Book History
Please note: there are, in addition, a number of required reading assignments available on the web, on different Julia Rogers Library databases (J-STOR and AMERICA: HISTORY & LIFE), and on Blackboard. Please make sure you are aware of these assignments and gain access to them in a timely manner. Computer and internet problems are not sufficient excuses for failing to complete reading assignments. Those readings marked with “***” are available on Blackboard. Those readings marked with “###” are available on “J-STOR” and/or “America: History and Life,” two digital databases available on the Julia Rogers library webpage. Those readings marked with “%%%” are available on reserve in the Julia Rogers Library.
In addition, you will view one “Oprah’s Book Club” video on reserve in the library. Make sure you set aside time to view this video.
Papers
You will complete three papers. The first paper (3-4 pages) is due Thursday Feb. 12. The second paper (3-4 pages) is due Thursday March 12. The third and final paper (8-12 pages + cover letter) is due Thursday April 30. The specific assignments for the first two papers will be discussed at a later date.
The third paper will be a creative writing assignment. Instead of writing a traditional essay, you will assume the voice and style of an imaginary historical figure and produce a new, “historical” document. For example, after reading portions of Thomas Shepard’s journal, you may want to write a number of diary entries as the voice of Shepard’s brother-in-law or wife. The possibilities are innumerable and you can really utilize your historical knowledge for creative gain. Along with the creative writing document, you will turn in a cover letter that explains the thinking behind the “historical” text you have produced. This cover letter should do two things: 1) discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your attempt to produce a new, “historical” document; and 2) discuss the ways in which the specific aspects of the genre and historical context of your document shaped the creative choices of your writing and the nature of your “historical” document. Be forewarned: this creative writing assignment is not a way to lessen your work; successful completion of this assignment will involve as much, if not more, careful planning, thinking, and writing as the more traditional essays.
Schedule of Class Meetings and Assignments
NOTE: those readings marked with “***” are available on Blackboard. Those readings marked with “###” are available on “J-STOR” and/or “America: History and Life,” two digital databases available on the Goucher College library webpage. Those readings marked with %%% are available on reserve in the Julia Rogers Library at Goucher College.
Tu. Jan. 27: Introduction
Th. Jan. 29: ***Jack Goody and Ian Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy,” in Goody, ed.,
Literacy in Traditional Societies, 27-68
Tu. Feb. 3: 1) ***David D. Hall, “The Uses of Literacy in New England, 1600-1850,” in
Hall, Cultures of Print: Essays in the History of the Book, 36-78
2) ***Thomas Shepard, “Journal” (November 1640-May 6, 1641) in Michael
McGiffert, ed. God’s Plot: The Paradoxes of Puritan Piety, Being the
Autobiography & Journal of Thomas Shepard, 83-99
Th. Feb. 5: 1) ### James Axtell, “The Power of Print in the Eastern Woodlands,” William
and Mary Quarterly 44 (1987) 300-309
2) ###Jill Lepore, “Dead Men Tell No Tales: John Sassamon and the Fatal
Consequences of Literacy,” American Quarterly 46 (1994) 479-512
Tu. Feb. 10: 1) ***Richard D. Brown, “Information and Authority in Samuel Sewall’s
Boston, 1676-1729,” in Brown, Knowledge is Power: The Diffusion of
Information in Early America, 1700-1865, 16-41
2) Tamara Plakins Thornton, Handwriting in America, 3-41
3) PABH, 52-58
Th. Feb. 12: Paper #1 (3-4 pages) Due at 10:00AM in Folder Outside VM 132
Tu. Feb. 17: 1) ***Lewis P. Simpson, “The Printer as a Man of Letters: Franklin and the
Symbolism of the Third Realm,” in J. A. Leo Lemay, ed. The Oldest
Revolutionary: Essays on Benjamin Franklin, 3-21
2) ###Prudence L. Steiner, “Benjamin Franklin’s Biblical Hoaxes,” Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society vol. 131 no. 2 (Jun. 1987) 183-196
3) PABH, 47-51, 80-84 and 95-96
Th. Feb. 19: 1) ***Robert Darnton, “Readers Respond to Rousseau: The Fabrication of
Romantic Sensitivity,” in Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre: And Other
Episodes in French Cultural History, 215-256
2) PABH, 62-67
Tu. Feb. 24: Jay Fliegelman, Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, & the
Culture of Performance, 1-94
Th. Feb. 26: NO CLASS
Tu. March 3: Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland; or the Transformation, 1-119
Th. March 5: Brown, Wieland, 120-234
Tu. Mar. 3: 1) Thornton, Handwriting, 43-71
2) ###Thomas Augst, “The Business of Reading in Nineteenth-Century America:
The New York Mercantile Library,” American Quarterly 50 no. 2 (1998) 267-
305
3) PABH, 136-138, 140-143, and 149-151
Th. Mar. 5: 1) ***Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Wealth,” in Emerson, Essays & Lectures, 987-
1011
2) ###Mary Kupiec Cayton, “The Making of an American Prophet: Emerson,
His Audiences, and the Rise of the Culture Industry in Nineteenth-Century
America,” American Historical Review 92 (1987) 597-620
3) PABH, 166-170
Tu. Mar. 10: 1) %%%Ezra Greenspan, Walt Whitman and the American Reader, 13-39
2) ###Anne Boyd, “’What! Has She Got into the ‘Atlantic’?’: Women Writers, the
Atlantic Monthly, and the Formation of the American Canon,” American Studies 39 no. 3
(Fall 1998) 5-36
3) PABH, 170-184
Th. Mar. 12: Paper #2 (3-4 pages) Due at 10:00AM in Folder Outside VM 132
Tu. Mar. 17 and Th. Mar. 19: NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK
Tu. Mar. 24: 1) ###David Waldstreicher, “Reading the Runaways: Self-Fashioning, Print
Culture and Confidence in Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic,”
William and Mary Quarterly 243-272
2) ### 10-15 Runaway slave advertisements from the “Virginia Runaways” website @
http://etext.virginia.edu/subjects/runaways/
Th. Mar. 26: 1) ***Ann Fabian, “Slaves,” in Fabian, The Unvarnished Truth: Personal
Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America, 79-116
2) PABH, 151-155 & 298-299
Tu. March 31: Thornton, Handwriting in America, 72-141
Th. Apr. 2: 1) PABH, 285-298
2) %%%George W. Goode, “Kathie, the Overseer’s Daughter,” Factory Life Library:
Stories for the Working People vol. 1 no. 1 (1887) 1-24
Tu. Apr. 7: 1) ***Christopher P. Wilson, “The Rhetoric of Consumption: Mass-Market
Magazines and the Demise of the Gentle Reader, 1880-1920,” in Richard
Wightman Fox and T. T. Jackson Lears, eds., The Culture of Consumption,
41-64
2) ###Joan Shelley Rubin, “Self, Culture, and Self-Culture in Modern America:
The Early History of the Book-of-the-Month Club,” Journal of American History
71 (1985) 782-806
3) PABH, 340-343, 345, and 347-357
Th. Apr. 9: Wright, Comic Book Nation, 1-55
Tu. Apr. 14: Wright, Comic Book Nation, 56-85 and 109-153
Th. Apr. 16: 1) Wright, Comic Book Nation, 86-108
2) %%%Leerom Medovoi, “Democracy, Capitalism, and American Literature: The
Cold War Construction of J.D. Salinger’s Paperback Hero,” in The Other Fifties:
Interrogating Midcentury American Icons, 255-287
3) %%%Jeff Jensen, “The Amazing Adventures of a Comic Book Kid,” Entertainment
Weekly, January 11, 2008, 49-52
Tu. Apr. 21: Wright, Comic Book Nation, 154-225
Th. Apr. 23: 1) Wright, Comic Book Nation, 226-253
2) PABH, 367-399
Tu. April 28: In-Class Video of Oprah’s Book Club
Th. April 30: In-Class Video of Oprah’s Book Club
Paper #3 (8-12 pages + cover letter) DUE at the BEGINNING of CLASS
Tu. May 5: 1) VIEW one more Oprah video on reserve in Julia Rogers Library
2) %%% “Oprah’s Materials Folder” (includes the following: 1) Gayle Feldman,
“Making Book on Oprah,” New York Times Book Review, February 2, 1997; 2)
D.T. Max, “The Oprah Effect,” New York Times Magazine, December 26, 1999;
3) Rebecca Pepper Sinkler, “My Case of Oprah Envy,” Washington Post, April 6,
1997; 4) Paula Chin and Christina Cheakalos, “Touched by an Oprah,” People,
December 12, 1999; 5) Ann Oldenburg, “Oprah: ‘These are the glory days for
me’,” USA Today, October 8, 1998)
Th. May 7: 1) Wright, Comic Book Nation, 282-292
2) other readings TBA