ENGL 361.02: Literatures of Exploration, Contact, and Settlement
What is American literature before America existed? And what counts as literature at time and place when when realities of migration, settlement, war, cultural conflict, exploration, and survival left little time for the development of the more refined literary production that we find in Elizabethan poetry and Restoration drawing-room dramas? This course addresses these questions with readings that include American Indian cultural production, early captivity narratives, accounts of colonial exploration, and the writings of the Puritans.
Beyond our shared course readings, the course will conclude with a significant archival project that will involve collaboration with CofC digital librarians and exploration of area archives, from our own special collections at CofC to area collections including those at the South Carolina Historical Society.
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