English 317: Literature of the Americas
Spring 2025 Instructor: Julian Suhr
Location: MUS 223 Office: Padelford B-410
Class Time: M/W 9:30 -11:20 am Office Hours: W 12-2 pm
Email: jrsuhr@uw.edu
Course Description:
What is American? The descriptor is familiar to the point of invisibility. We know that a course on American literature will address the art and culture of the geographical region and sociopolitical entity known as the United States of America, and we may have a general idea of the typical subjects and narratives that this literature will address, for it is the story of how we’ve arrived in our present moment. Yet the familiarity of “American” obscures an interesting question: how, exactly, did we reach this present moment? It’s relatively straightforward to read in a spirit of critical diagnosis, to look for evidence of the systemic forces that caused the idea of America to form over time. And while we will be doing some diagnostic reading in this class, that process neglects the trickier, fascinating issue of the Americas that didn’t come to pass. When we turn to the literary archive, we can discover a rich and heterogenous world, a collection of cultures and societies with differing perspectives and ideals that all inhabited the geographical territory now identified as America. These other Americas produced literature that contested, negotiated, and articulated alternative visions for the future of America, revealing the possibilities and uncertainties that existed in their respective historical moments. By excavating these possibilities and reading them alongside canonical American narratives, we can better observe the process through which systems of power subsumed and incorporated those unrealized futures into the America we now know. Simultaneously, by defamiliarizing ourselves from a sense of historical inevitability, we can conceptualize the contingency of these systemic forces, reanimating the values and ideas that might have come to pass.
This course will focus on 19th century American literature, charting the negotiation and production of different visions for “America” in the literary imagination during a historical epoch that established the formation of the nation as we know it.
Learning objectives:
- Students will develop familiarity with a range of texts useful to understanding 19th century American literature, which will serve as an introduction to topics and materials that they may wish to work with in the future.
- Students will practice contextualizing and analyzing literature historically, politically, and culturally.
- Students will appreciate the value and challenge of difference and disagreement.
Required texts:
We will be reading the following books in full this quarter:
- Black Hawk, Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk (978-0143105398) (110 pgs)
- John Rollin Ridge (Yellow Bird), The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (978-0143132653) (130 pgs)
- Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (978-0674035836) (259 pgs)
- Martin Delany, Blake; or the Huts of America (978-0674088726) (310 pgs)
I’ve listed the appropriate ISBN numbers so you can be sure to get the same edition as the rest of the class (so we can all be on the same page!). Please note that if you obtain a different edition, such as an e-book, you may need to scramble to find the page we’re talking about.
That said, one of the perks of working with 19th century literature is that many of these texts are available for free online. The main exception is Blake, which does not seem to exist online in full—please be sure to purchase a copy of this text.
The remainder of readings will be available on Canvas, either as pdfs or as links to the relevant digital books (I won’t ask you to buy a text if we’ll only be reading excerpts from it). Please refer to the schedule of course meetings (at the end of this syllabus) for the specific page numbers or chapters.
Assignments and Grading:
4.0 Grading Conversion Scale:
I will use the following scale to calculate your grade on a 4.0 scale. My policy is to round up: 95.5 and above would count as a 4.0, for example. Remember that Canvas does not weight your grade, so please refer to the grading percentage breakdown listed below to calculate your percentage in our class.
|
Number |
Percentage |
Letter grade |
|
4.0 |
100 |
A+ |
|
3.9 |
95 |
A |
|
3.8 |
92 |
A- |
|
3.4 |
88 |
B+ |
|
3.1 |
85 |
B |
|
2.8 |
82 |
B - |
|
2.4 |
78 |
C + |
|
2.1 |
75 |
C |
|
1.8 |
72 |
C - |
|
1.4 |
68 |
D + |
|
1.1 |
65 |
D |
Assignments:
- Participation: 20%
- Discussion Question: 5%
- First Short Essay: 10%
- Second Short Essay: 15%
- Third Short Essay: 15%
- Final Essay Proposal: 5%
- Final Essay Rough Draft: 5%
- Final Essay: 25%
Participation:
This is a discussion-based class, and your participation in our conversations is essential for both your own learning and the success of the class as a whole. Here’s how I will grade participation: at the beginning of each class, we will have small group discussions about that day’s reading. At the end of this discussion, I will ask you summarize the ideas your group discussed in a brief Canvas survey. My hope is that, after thinking about some discussion questions and writing down your ideas, you’ll be primed to speak up in our whole-class discussion! It is not possible to make up missed participation points, as they reflect being present for a specific conversation at a specific point in time, but I will excuse two missed days of participation per student. These surveys will be graded pass/fail; responses that demonstrate an engagement with the discussion questions and the readings will receive credit, while responses that are overly brief or don’t mention concepts from the question and reading won’t receive credit.
Discussion Question:
Once this quarter everyone will present a discussion question to the class. This will involve preparing a roughly one-minute explanation of how you arrived at this question: what specific quotes or passages from the reading inspired you? What bigger ideas from our course are you engaging with? What was your thought process in coming up with this question? Everyone will sign up to present during the first week of class. Please refer to the guidelines posted on Canvas for more details.
Short Essays:
You will write three brief essays (900-1,200 words each, or 3-4 pages), applying one of our readings to one of our texts. Think of this as an exercise in pure analysis, a semi-formal articulation of a problem or question, the seed of a potential final essay topic. What I’m looking for is written evidence of your thought process as you think critically about a text. I will post my grading guidelines to Canvas as a part of the assignment prompts.
Final Essay:
Your final essay will be 1,500-2,100 words (5-7 pages, with normal fonts and margins). This paper will build upon the work of one of your short essays: I want you to use the work of the theorists we have read to make an argument about what cultural values one of our texts is/are expressing. You will also complete a brief proposal for this essay, a one page document consisting of your thesis and the contours of your argument, and rough draft of this essay, for which I will provide feedback. The proposal and rough draft will be graded on completion, and the final draft will receive a conventional letter grade. I will post my grading guidelines to Canvas as a part of your essay prompt.
Late Work:
Please submit all assignments to the appropriate Canvas portal by the posted deadline. In the event that you are unable to submit an assignment on time, please reach out to me via email to request an extension. I can be flexible with these deadlines, within reason, and am typically happy to grant extensions. However, bear in mind that late work will receive less attention from me, and that I cannot provide feedback on assignments after the posted due date. Unexcused late essays will be marked down 1/3rd of a letter grade per day; late assignments that are graded on completion will be marked down 25% per week.
Course Policies:
On Reading:
The knowledge that you gain from this course will come from discussions with your peers, not from me summarizing the readings in a lecture. In order to fully participate in our conversations you must do the readings. This does not mean that you must master the readings--it is more than OK to be confused, or even frustrated. But in order to know what the rest of us are talking about you need to have at least encountered everything that we’re discussing. I recommend taking notes on your subjective response to what you’re reading, particularly framed in relation to specific quotes or ideas: what’s intriguing? What connects to other readings or ideas? What’s aggravating? Why?
On Silence:
I have heard of this mythical beast, the “awkward silence,” that has been known to enter a discussion-based class and produce a negative spiral, in which the silence that follows an instructor’s question lingers and builds until nobody feels they can speak. I want to dispel that feeling from the outset. As one of my professors in grad school once said, I don’t believe in awkward silences. I simply hear it as the sound of students thinking. I know that if we’re asking complicated questions, it may take some time for you to think about how you’d like to respond. Please don’t feel pressure to immediately “know” an answer—take the time that you need to gather your thoughts, feel free to answer partially, and recognize that there will typically be no “right” answers to the questions I’m asking. We’re trying to keep a conversation going, and silences are a necessary component of this work!
On Critical Generosity:
You could think of this as the “yes, and…” theory of academic discourse: the idea that our goal in discussions is to think with one another, to build upon others’ ideas in good faith in order to collectively guide our conversation towards richer observations. Implicitly, it stands against a more traditional form of criticism that seeks to identify the limits or weaknesses of an idea in order to prove that it is “wrong.” I request—and expect—that all of us will engage in critical generosity with each other during the course of this class. Our readings address a variety of upsetting topics, and it would stifle our discussions if we felt that we could not attempt to think through an idea out loud for fear of being criticized. Further, I want to extend the concept of critical generosity to our interactions with each other, human to human. Please be considerate of your classmates, who are your colleagues in this intellectual endeavor: refrain from personal attacks, and be aware of the effect that topics or specific words within these texts can have when spoken of lightly or aloud. If you are ever made to feel uncomfortable in our class, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
I want to also raise a specific issue here: working with 19th century American literature means that we will encounter works that use racial slurs. It is my policy not to vocalize this language in class; if we are reading a passage aloud and the author employs a racial slur, I will skip over the word or replace it with a neutral descriptor. My reasoning here is that I believe verbalizing this language, even in quotation, creates a hostile and unwelcoming learning environment, which is the antithesis of critical generosity. It is my belief that we can still engage critically with our texts without reanimating histories of violence by giving voice to this language.
Communication:
I can be reached at my UW email address (jrsuhr@uw.edu), which I check frequently. Please note that I typically do not check my email after 9 pm or on weekends, and please send me a reminder email if you haven’t heard back from me in 48 hours. Additionally, I will send messages to the class via Canvas, so please make sure that you are receiving those messages. I am more than happy to answer any questions or concerns that you have—if you are in doubt, please reach out! This includes assistance navigating student resources and other concerns that may help you as a human navigate the stresses of academic work and life broadly.
Technology:
I recognize that it would be unrealistic for me, in 2025, to prohibit my students from using laptops, tablets, etc. to take notes and access course materials in class. So I’ll just make a general statement of accountability: please refrain from using your devices for non-class purposes during class. The alluring glow of things like (but not limited to) texting and social media scrolling detract not just from your own ability to learn and participate in our discussions, but are a distraction for anyone else who can see your screen. If you would like to go so far as to take notes on paper and only use your devices when we’re doing in-class work, I would be delighted. Please do keep your phones away, though, as they are difficult to work on and easy to play on. I reserve the right to deduct points from your participation grade in the event that you use devices irresponsibly.
Academic Integrity:
As a member of the academic community, you are expected to respect the intellectual labor of other scholars, and to produce your own work through honest hard thought. If you have any questions about whether you are unintentionally plagiarizing, or if you are feeling desperate to the point of needing to copy somebody else’s work, please contact me for assistance. I would much rather work with a student to help avoid academically dishonest practices than report a student after the fact. The University of Washington Student Conduct Code (WAC 478-121) defines prohibited academic and behavioral conduct and describes how the University holds students accountable as they pursue their academic goals. Allegations of misconduct by students may be referred to the appropriate campus office for investigation and resolution. More information can be found online at https://www.washington.edu/cssc.
Artificial Intelligence:
As for the other AI, all work submitted for this course must be your own. Any use of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, when working on assignments is forbidden. Use of generative AI will be considered academic misconduct and subject to investigation: any assignments that I suspect were produced with the assistance of AI will receive zero points and will be referred to Community Standards & Student Conduct. The assignments in this class have been designed to challenge you to develop creativity, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills. Using AI technology will limit your capacity to develop these skills and to meet the learning goals of this course. If you have any questions about what constitutes academic integrity in this course or at the University of Washington, please feel free to contact me to discuss your concerns.
Accommodation/Accessibility:
Your experience in this class is important to me. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please activate your accommodations via myDRS so we can discuss how they will be implemented in this course.
If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), contact DRS directly to set up an Access Plan. DRS facilitates the interactive process that establishes reasonable accommodations. Contact DRS at disability.uw.edu.
Religious Accommodations:
Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at the Registrar’s website: https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form found here: https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request.
University Resources:
Counseling Center
Collegiate life (and life in general) can become overwhelming at times, and I sincerely encourage you to take care of your mental health this quarter. UW Counseling Center workshops include a wide range of issues including study skills, thinking about coming out, international students and culture shock, and much more. Visiting the Counseling Center can have an extremely positive impact on your success and well-being at the University of Washington. Check out available resources and workshops at: https://wellbeing.uw.edu/unit/counseling-center.
Odegaard Writing & Research Center
The Odegaard Writing and Research Center (OWRC) offers free, one-to-one, 45-minute tutoring sessions for undergraduate, graduate, and professional writers in all fields at the UW. They will work with writers on any writing or research project, as well as personal projects such as applications or personal statements. Their tutors and librarians collaborate with writers at any stage of the writing and research process, from brainstorming and identifying sources to drafting and making final revisions. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please see their website (http://depts.washington.edu/owrc), or come visit them on the first floor of Odegaard Undergraduate Library.
CLUE Writing Center
The CLUE is a drop-in writing and tutoring center open from 7pm-midnight all days except Friday and Saturday throughout the quarter. For more info, check out their website: https://academicsupport.uw.edu/clue.
wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House
Intellectual House is a longhouse-style facility on the UW Seattle campus. It provides a multi-service learning and gathering space for American Indian and Alaska Native students, faculty, and staff, as well as others from various cultures and communities to come together in a welcoming environment to share knowledge. https://www.washington.edu/omad/intellectual-house. (wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ is pronounced “wah-sheb-altuh.”)
Q Center
The University of Washington Q Center builds and facilitates queer (gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirit, trans, intersex, questioning, same-gender-loving, asexual, aromantic) academic and social community through education, advocacy, and support services to achieve a socially-just campus in which all people are valued. For more information, visit https://sites.uw.edu/qcenter.
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Schedule of Course Meetings and Assignments:
Week 1
Monday 3/31: • Introductions
- Syllabus review
- Discussion: Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”
Wednesday 4/2: • Cabeza de Vaca, excerpts from La relación
Friday 4/4: Due: Respond to the Welcome Questionnaire!
Week 2
Monday 4/7: • Brickhouse, excerpts from The Unsettlement of America
Wednesday 4/9: • Crèvecoeur, excerpts from Letters From an American Farmer
Week 3
Monday 4/14: • Cooper, excerpts from The Last of the Mohicans
Wednesday 4/16: • Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native”
Friday 4/18: Due: First Short Essay
Week 4
Monday 4/21: • Black Hawk, Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk
Wednesday 4/23: • Day of reflection
Week 5
Monday 4/28: • Twain, excerpts from Roughing It
Wednesday 4/30: • Lewis, excerpt from Unsettling the Literary West
Friday 5/2: Due: Second Short Essay
Week 6
Monday 5/5: • Clappe (Dame Shirley), excerpts from The Shirley Letters
Wednesday 5/7: • Rollin Ridge (Yellow Bird), The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta
Week 7
Monday 5/12: • Stowe, excerpts from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Wednesday 5/14: • Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Friday 5/16: Due: Third Short Essay
Week 8
Monday 5/19: • Hartman, excerpts from Scenes of Subjection
Wednesday 5/21: • Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Friday 5/23: Due: Final Essay Proposal
Week 9
Monday 5/26: University Holiday, no class
Wednesday 5/28: • Delany, Blake part 1
Friday 5/30: Due: Final Essay Rough Draft
Week 10
Monday 6/2: • Delany, Blake part 2
Wednesday 6/4: • Day of reflection
- Course evaluations
- Parting thoughts!
Finals Week
Monday 6/9: Due: Final Essay Final Draft
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Please note that this syllabus is subject to revision. I will notify you of any revisions via email.