AJ0323 Values in American Literature and History: Individualism and Collectivism

Faculty of Education
Spring 2018
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
doc. Mgr. Světlana Hanušová, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)
Charlotte Laughlin (seminar tutor), doc. Mgr. Světlana Hanušová, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D.
Department of English Language and Literature – Faculty of Education
Contact Person: Jana Popelková
Supplier department: Department of English Language and Literature – Faculty of Education
Timetable of Seminar Groups
AJ0323/01: Thu 13:00–14:40 učebna 39, S. Hanušová
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 30 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/30, only registered: 0/30, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/30
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 16 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
This is a American literature/American culture class organized around the two basic value of American history: individualism vs. community. We are seeing a Republican emphasis on individualism (the right of the individual to carry guns openly, the right of individuals not to share with other citizens (ie: tax cuts), the right of America to be isolationist and put itself first instead of being a leader and helper in international issues. But the history of putting community first is just as strong in the U.S., and it often plays out in literature. In those cases, it is as often about personal wholeness as it is about politics. We have see the literary theme that the individual cannot be whole without the community and the community cannot be whole without the commitment of individuals. Likewise, we see that societies that do not recognize and respect the rights of individuals are inevitably corrupt and replace. Look at the long history of slavery in the “freedom-loving” USA. Eventually, the system had to be destroyed. Individual rights became more important than states’ rights, and in protecting individual rights, the federal government had to become stronger, which some still see as oppression of both state and individual rights. It’s always a question of balance, and it runs through much of American literature, including the poetry of Emily Dickinson (not in a political way, but in society vs. individual) and of Walt Whitman.
Syllabus
  • 1. William Bradford’s history of Plymouth Plantation, Michael Wigglesworth’s narrative poem, “Day of Doom,” both of which emphasize authority rather than individual freedoms. They came to American not only for their group’s freedom of religion but also to be free of the “corrupting” influences they felt the younger generation was experiencing in Holland where they did have freedom of religion. So their immigration to America was also about control of the community. And they did not extend the idea of freedom of religion to individuals or to other religious groups. Everyone in their community had to comply with the organized version of religious orthodoxy. 2. John Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity” (1630), which was a plea to subsume individualism in favor of the collective good. And Anne Bradstreet’s and Edward Taylor’s Puritan poetry, which was much more individualistic than earlier Puritan poetry. We will also compare Winthrop’s sermon to Ronald Reagan’s Nov. 3, 1980, campaign speech in which he refers to Winthrop’s sermon, but completely misinterprets it to be advocating individualism rather than collective responsibility. The Winthrop section is right before minute 16 in this Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kD-SxI29ME But in other parts of the speech, Reagan advocates national and even world unity. It’s a great example of how there’s always a tension between the pull of individual rights and the pull of group patriotism (which, as in 2017, can become an individualistic/nationalistic “America First” isolationist philosophy) or which can go beyond the group to the world as our ultimate community as Reagan’s speech does. Winthrop’s quoting of the biblical “a city on a hill” has become foundational in American self-definition and the basis of “American Exceptionalism,” which sets America (the individual nation) apart from the rest of the world, so the image of “a city on a hill” is weirdly transformed to become not a symbol of community, but a symbol of individualism (in this case an individual nation, not an individual person). Reagan refers to the “city on a hill” again in his farewell speech of 1989. 3. Puritan dissenters, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, who refused to unquestioningly follow both religious and secular authority and instead insisted upon their individual right to respond to God as they experienced His call on their individual lives through Bible reading, meditation, and prayer. They claimed that God’s dealing with them individually superceded the teachings and laws of authority. It’s the same argument Henry David Thoreau presents in his essay, “On Civil Disobedience,” although he argues primarily from a secular point of view and Williams and Hutchinson primarily from a spiritual point of view. But for both Thoreau and Emerson, the individual soul was primary because both men had a spiritual (though not orthodox Christian) sense of the sacred nature of the individual. 4. Contemporary records of Salem witch trials, what motivated accusations, how individuals reacted to a communal hysteria, etc. We will read and/or view the Arthur Miller’s 20th-century play, The Crucible, during this unit. The play is about the Salem witch trials, but it was pointedly directed at the 1950s “Red Scare” and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American activities. It was revived in the late 1960s and early 1970s during anti Viet Nam War protests and is relevant again in today’s political climate. The witch trials, collective guilt for them, and later literature about them are fundamental to understanding much of American literature and culture. I will want to include the apology of Judge Sewall (5 years after pronouncing death sentences on “witches). Sewall wrote against slavery and for Native American rights. He was also a sort of utopian thinker in theory, but even he fell into the collective madness of the witch trials. Another possibility is reading the award-winning young adult novel, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. The Canadian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, would also be appropriate here, and it’s had a lot of press recently (related to current political machinations) including a new TV mini-series based on the novel. But I’m not sure I should ask the class to read an entire novel in English. 5. Selections from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and “Way to Wealth” (very individualistic but still with a strong sense of the individual’s work within the community. The autobiography itself is partially written to establish and cement his position in society.) 6. The Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the U.S. Constitution (the first more about individual rights, the second more about communal organization but it had to add the Bill of Rights for individuals before all 13 states would accept it). 7. Short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I’d love to use the novel, The Scarlet Letter. Even though it’s relatively short for a novel, the language is hard for sophomore Texas students, so I think I won’t ask non-native speakers to read it. Hawthorne’s grandfather was one of the judges in the Salem Witch Trials and one of only two, I think, who issued a public apology for his part in them. Hawthorne is fascinated with individual vs. collective guilt and individual vs. collective rights. His work often asks if the individual can ever be independent of the group (and any guilt the group may incur) and if the group can ever successfully incorporate the rights of the individual. He favors the rights of the individual but finds that separating oneself too far from the community is nearly always a fatal mistake, destroying some part of the individual (psychological, emotional, or even physical death) and damages the community. Twentieth-century Novel prize-winner, William Faulkner, in writing about the post Civil War, “Jim Crow” South consistently worked with the concept that the individual cannot be complete when the community is broken and the community cannot be complete when individuals are left behind, broken and separated. But I don’t know if I can get to Faulkner in a one semester class. 8. Students nearly always love the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Even his poems, such as “The Raven” and “Annabelle Lee,” have implied questions about how far from established society and community an individual can wander without going crazy. The short stories, “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death,” appear to be good escapist horror stories on the surface level, but they, too, are concerned with community, the individual, and separation from community. 9. Then it’s time for the Transcendentalists, much of whose writing I find irritating (in style). Even Emerson said Thoreau’s style made him nervous, and Thoreau’s aunt said but we will definitely read all of Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and significant sections from Walden. 10.Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave and Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” 11.Poetry of Whitman 12.Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Literature
  • The silenced majority : women and American democracy (Souběž.) : Ženščiny i amerikanskaja demokratija : bol'šinstvo, kotoroje zastavljajut molčat'. info
  • The hippies and American values. Edited by Timothy Miller. 2nd ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2011, xxix, 162. ISBN 9781572337701. info
  • Race, incarceration, and American values. Edited by Glenn C. Loury. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008, 86 p. ISBN 9780262123112. info
  • MATSUSAKA, John G. For the many or the few : the initiative, public policy, and American democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, xii, 201. ISBN 0226510816. URL info
  • Civic engagement in american democracy. Edited by Theda Skocpol - Morris P. Fiorina. Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1999, viii, 528. ISBN 0815728093. info
  • American values : opposing viewpoints. Edited by David L. Bender. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1989, 312 p. : i. ISBN 0-89908-411-7. info
  • BEARD, Charles Austin and Mary Ritter BEARD. The american spirit : a study of the idea of civilization in the United states. New York: Collier Books, 1942. info
  • LONG, William J. American literature : a study of the men and the books that in the earlier and later times reflect the American spirit. Boston: Ginn, Ginn and Company, 1913, xxi, 481 s. info
Teaching methods
lecture, shared reading, textual analysis, class discussion
Assessment methods
attendance and classwork, class readings and quizzes, credit test
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
General note: Předmět bude realizován, pokud se přihlásí alespoň 15 studentů.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: 2 hodiny.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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