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Required Texts
Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette (1797).
Oxford
UP 0-19-504239-5 1987
Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple (1794).
Oxford
UP 0-19-504238-7 1987
Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World (1850).
Feminist Press 0-935312-66-8
Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall (1854).
Rutgers
UP 0-8135-1168-2
Maria Cummins, The Lamplighter (1854).
Rutgers
UP 0-8135-1333-2
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
(1852). Norton 0-393-96303-9
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave
Girl (1861). Norton
0-393-976378
E.D.E.N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand or, Capitola
the Madcap (originally serialized in The Ledger
in 1859).
Rutgers
UP; 0-8135-1296-4
Packet readings:
Poe, "Ligeia." Douglass, from
Narrative of the Life of an American Slave. Hawthorne,
“Rappaccini’s Daughter,”
“The Birthmark.”
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Recommended,
not required
Gibaldi, Joseph. The MLA
Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Sixth Edition.
New York
: MLA, 2003.
Harmon,
William and Hugh Holman. A
Handbook to Literature. Ninth Edition.
New
Jersey
:
Prentice Hall, 2003.
Description
The rise of the sentimental novel
marks one of the most powerful and interesting developments in American
fiction. Beginning with Charlotte Temple in 1791 and The
Coquette (1797) and perhaps reaching its apotheosis with Uncle
Tom’s Cabin in 1852, women writers focused simultaneously on
sentiment (the tender emotions and perceptions of their fictional
heroines) and the status quo (the harsh realities of life for women).
Awkward about its own literary status, the sentimental novel appealed to
a growing market of middle-brow consumers. Complex, surprising, and
wildly popular in their own day, these pieces were ignored or derided in
academic circles until the fairly recent rise of feminist studies.
Primarily through class discussion and student presentations, this
seminar explores the cultural, literary and academic significance of the
American sentimental novel.
Requirements
and Grading
Essay 1, 3-5 pages (20%); Term Essay Proposal (approx. 500 words,
ungraded); Term
Essay, 12-15 pages (45%); weekly secondary essay response (approx. 1 page each per critical essay, 10%);
presentation and summary (approx. 500 words, 15%); participation
(10%). Your attendance is
expected.
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Presentation
You will make one 7-10 minute presentation to the class on a critical
essay selected with my consultation and distributed to class the week
before your presentation. The class will have read the essay you are
summarizing and will
have questions for discussion in hand. After distributing and reading
your summary, you will lead the class discussion, highlighting the
essay's most important points and analyzing their effectiveness.
Think about the ways in which this secondary reading helps you or
hinders you in your understanding of the novel and is
sue
s and ideas surrounding the novel. Your
presentation and summary will be graded on the accuracy of the summary (through the
written portion of the presentation) as well the coherence, clarity and
fluency of the presentation itself.
If you are not presenting, you
will have in hand a one or two
page
response to the secondary material.
By response, I mean not a sum
mary
but a dialogue of sorts with the secondary texts' authors.
What do you not understand in the essay?
What strikes you as particularly lucid, helpful, or insightful?
Your response, in other words, serves as preparation for
discussion of the secondary text in class.
Format and Electronic
Submissions
All essays written out
of class must be typed, double-spaced, in 12 pt. font, with 1"
margins (left, right, top and bottom). Include a "works cited"
page when appropriate. Follow current MLA (Modern Language
Association) format for in-text citations and works cited pages.
Essays submitted in incorrect format will be returned unread and marked
late as necessary until corrections are made.
You may submit written work to me via email, under the following
conditions: your document must be sent as an attachment, not as part of
the email message, in Microsoft Word; it must be correctly formatted; it
must be submitted on the date due, neither earlier nor later.
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Getting
in touch with me
I am happy to
respond to questions and ideas via email at abrunjes@bridgew.edu.
If you
email me, I will do my best to return your message within two business
days. You can also reach me
by phone (508 531 2435) during my office hours and most afternoons until 4:00
.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
is a very serious academic offense; it is equivalent to theft. Because
you do a great deal of writing in this class, I will become familiar
with your style and your capabilities and can spot plagiarism easily.
If you plagiarize, at the very least I will fail the essay in question.
Depending on the seriousness of the offense, you may fail the course
and/or face disciplinary action before the college academic review
panel. See pp. 48-49 of the 2003-2004 BSC Catalog for a
detailed discussion of college policies concerning academic integrity.
Simply put, plagiarism is "the
false assumption of authorship: the
wrongful act of taking the product of another person’s mind, and
presenting it as one’s own" (Alexander Lindey, qtd. in MLA
Handbook 66). According to the MLA Handbook, there are
two kinds of plagiarism. The
first is intellectual theft, which is achieved by “using another
person’s ideas, information, or expressions without acknowledging that
person’s work.” The
second is fraud, achieved by “passing off another person’s ideas
information, or expressions as your own to get a better grade or gain
some other advantage” (66).
This
is the general rule of thumb regarding plagiarism: any time
you refer to, quote, or in any way use another person's publicly
presented ideas in your own oral or written work, you must give
credit to that person in writing in the body of your essay and in a
"Works Cited" page. There are absolutely no
exceptions to this rule. It includes material taken from the
Web, from printed texts, from video, DVD, CD, CD-rom, etc.--the whole
world of information that surrounds you. If you are
concerned that you are plagiarizing or if you are having difficulty
understanding the rules of citation and documentation, ask me for help.
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Schedule
of Assignments
(Week 1)
September 14 Introduction.
(Week 2)
September 21
Rowson, Charlotte
Temple.
Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette.
(Week 3)
September 28
Foster, The Coquette.
Presentations: Sheila
Barber; Lauren Bolger
(Week 4)
October 5
Warner, The Wide,
Wide World.
Presentations: Catie Conlon;
Michael Haggerty
Essay 1
due
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(Week 5)
October 12
Warner, The Wide, Wide World.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle
Tom’s Cabin.
Presentations: Elizabeth Hawes;
Michael Keirstead
(Week 6)
October 19
Stowe, Uncle
Tom’s Cabin.
Presentations: Laura LaViolette;
Robin Leoni
(Week 7)
October 26
Maria Susanna Cummins,
The Lamplighter.
Presentations:
Lindsay Mateiro
Term
Essay proposals due.
(Week 8)
November 2
(election day)
Cummins, The Lamplighter.
Presentations: Lauren Richard
(Week 9)
November 9
E.D.E.N.
Southworth, The Hidden Hand or, Capitola the Madcap.
Presentation: Elizabeth Sullivan
Term
Essay preliminary bibliography due.
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(Week 10)
November 16
Southworth, The Hidden Hand.
Presentation: Nichole Wilson
(Week 11)
November 23
Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall.
Term essays: last
opportunity to review drafts with me.
(Week 12)
November 30
Fern, Ruth Hall.
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl.
(Week 13)
December 7
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Packet Readings: Poe,
"Ligeia."
(Week 14)
December 14
Packet Readings:
Douglass, from
Narrative of the Life of an American Slave. Hawthorne,
“Rappaccini’s Daughter,”
“The Birthmark.”
Term essays due.
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