American Literature 1865 – 1914: New Media, Modern (Con)Texts

This course examines literature’s representation of, and role in, the social upheaval of the postbellum and turn-of-the-century eras. The particular focus for this year is the representation of technologies like the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, and cinema. We’ll read literary texts as explorations of the changes wrought by these new mediums, as they appear in understandings of the body, the psyche, gender, sexuality, and literary narrative itself. What was their impact on notions of time and space? On memory, both individual and collective? We will read well-known writers like Stephen Crane and Henry James alongside lesser-known authors whose work was especially ripe with ideas and fantasies about new technologies and their social effects. Our readings will also include a few contemporary British texts, notably the sensationally popular novel Trilby, which will allow us to explore the transatlantic nature of these modern phenomena.

We’ll be particularly focused on changing conceptions of the visual and the aural. How did the mechanical reproduction of images in photography and film influence the move toward “realism” in fiction? What powers were ascribed to sight and the ability to manipulate it? How did the phonograph’s ability to immortalize voices have impact on people’s ideas about ghosts and life after death? How did these phenomena of modernity shape other forms of spectacle rampant in this era, such as lynching?

Texts will include the following:
Stephen Crane, The Monster, The Red Badge of Courage, and selected stories
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward and “With the Eyes Shut”
Telegraph romance fiction
Thomas Edison, early writings, films, and sound recordings
Henry James, “Professor Fargo”
Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition
James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
George DuMaurier, Trilby
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives
Mark Twain, Puddnhead Wilson
Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New

Requirements:
Three papers of 4-6 pages, active class participation, a brief oral presentation, and, of course, attendance.