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COURSE UNIT TITLECOURSE UNIT CODESEMESTERTHEORY + PRACTICE (Hour)ECTS
THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE AMER522 - 3 + 0 10

TYPE OF COURSE UNITElective Course
LEVEL OF COURSE UNITMaster's Degree With Thesis
YEAR OF STUDY-
SEMESTER-
NUMBER OF ECTS CREDITS ALLOCATED10
NAME OF LECTURER(S)Professor Himmet Umunç
LEARNING OUTCOMES OF THE COURSE UNIT At the end of this course, the students;
1) will be able to discuss the historical, political and cultural climate of the period extending roughly between 1840-1865 that gave rise to the first generation of great writers who were distinctly American,
2) will be able to study the basic tenets of American Transcendentalism and Romanticism,
3) will be able to establish relationships between the political and intellectual movements such as the Anti-Slavery Movement, the Utopian Movement, the Feminist Movement and the proliferation of good writers.
MODE OF DELIVERYFace to face
PRE-REQUISITES OF THE COURSENo
RECOMMENDED OPTIONAL PROGRAMME COMPONENTNone
COURSE DEFINITIONThe flowering of American literature in the first half of the 19th century and its contribution to the formation of the national literary character.
COURSE CONTENTS
WEEKTOPICS
1st Week General introduction: A historical, political, and socio-cultural overview; America in the post-Revolution period to the Civil War; the age of ?great transformation;? the new social, political and cultural American identity; from literary imitations in the past to a growing awareness and search for indigenous literary production; Americanism and Americanness in literature, the creation of a distinctly national literature.
2nd Week (Continued).
3rd Week Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American Literary Renaisssance, Transcendentalism, American national identity (The American Scholar, Self-Reliance, The Poet, Nature, Circles, and so forth).
4th Week (Continued).
5th Week Henry David Thoreau, Ecopiety, Anti-materialism, social dissidence (Walden; Resistance to Civil Government). Student presentation.
6th Week Washington Irving, local historicism, folkloric writing, gothicism, origins of American identity. (The Sketch Book: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Rip van Winkle;) Student presentation.
7th Week James Fenimore Cooper, the problem of American identity, racial integration, the American Frontier, romanticism and environmetalism (The Last of the Mohicans, The Pioneers). Student presentation.
8th Week Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, Henry W. Longfellow, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe: Racial integration, Anti-Slavery movements: abolitionists. Student presentation.
9th Week Nathaniel Hawthorne: the colonial Puritan past and historicism, gothicism, social criticism (The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, etc.). Student presentation.
10th Week (Continued).
11th Week Herman Melville: American literary identity and authenticity, the maturity of the American novel, American mythopoecisim, class and the self, symbolism and philosophical signifieds in Melville?s fiction (Moby Dick, Bartleby the Scrivener, Billy Budd The Sailor, etc.). Student presentation.
12th Week (Continued).
13th Week Edgar Allan Poe: American romanticişsm and gothicism; Poetical works. Student presentation.
14th Week Wrap-up, and concluding statements.
RECOMENDED OR REQUIRED READINGRusk, Ralph L. The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: C. Scribner?s Sons, 1949. Print.
Buell, Lawrence. Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. Print.
Buell, Lawrence. New England Literary Culture: From Revolution through Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Print.
Howe, Irving. The American Newness: Culture and Politics in the Age of Emerson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986. Print.
Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Print.
Condry, William. Thoreau. New York: Philosophical Library, 1954. Print.
Harding, Walter Roy. A Thoreau Handbook. New York: New York University Press, 1959. Print.
Derleth, August William. The Concord Rebel: A Life of Henry D. Thoreau. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1962. Print.
Richardson, Robert D. Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Print.
Ruland, Richard: Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Walden: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968. Print.
Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and The Formation of American Culture. Cambridge: Belknap-Harvard University Press, 1995. Print.
Crowley, J. Donald. Nathaniel Hawthorne. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971. Print.
Reynolds, Larry J. A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.
Turner, Arlin. Nathaniel Hawthorne: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961. Print.
Levin, Harry. The Power of Blackness: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1958. Print.
PLANNED LEARNING ACTIVITIES AND TEACHING METHODSLecture,Discussion,Presentation,Questions/Answers
ASSESSMENT METHODS AND CRITERIA
 QuantityPercentage(%)
Mid-term260
Attendance115
Total(%)75
Contribution of In-term Studies to Overall Grade(%)75
Contribution of Final Examination to Overall Grade(%)25
Total(%)100
ECTS WORKLOAD
Activities Number Hours Workload
Midterm exam236
Preparation for Quiz
Individual or group work14570
Preparation for Final exam14040
Course hours14342
Preparation for Midterm exam23570
Laboratory (including preparation)
Final exam133
Homework
Weekly Articles and Resource Research14570
Total Workload301
Total Workload / 3010,03
ECTS Credits of the Course10
LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTIONEnglish
WORK PLACEMENT(S)No
  

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