English 27

RL:9 Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-
century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more
texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics.

I wish to highlight a number of themes in this field including the work of literature in defining nation; racial formations in American literature; constructions of urban, rural, and frontier spaces; and the American expatriate or traveler. I am particularly concerned with the use of the figure of the Indian and what Toni Morrison calls "Africanist presences" in the works on this list. This field provides context for my major field, African American Literature, as it addresses the traditions that African American authors may be writing in and against in the 19th century. The articulations of nation in the works listed here will inform my readings of the texts on my other minor list which addresses mappings of nation and other communities in literature. Many of these works struggle to articulate models of nation that texts on my other minor field list will later resist.

Harriet Beecher Stowe 
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

Herman Melville 
Moby Dick (1851)