In this seminar I'd like to explore some texts that have made an identifiable difference in the culture of the United States in the past two centuries. The texts we will examine will include some which were important in a political context and others which were influential best sellers and changed peoples' beliefs and values.

In the first half of the seminar, we will develop some of the key issues using examples from the late 18th through the 19th century. These will include Paine's Common Sense, the "Declaration of Independence" and some of the Federalist Papers, Cummings' The Lamplighter (an early best-seller), Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Twain's Tom Sawyer. In addition to reading the texts, students will track down contemporary reactions: book reviews, advertisements, letters and journals, etc. Doing this will help us figure out why and how these texts were targeted to and affected their audiences.

We will also discuss some earlier texts that have become famous but had little readership in their own times, for example the "Seneca Falls Declaration," Melville's Moby-Dick and Chopin's Awakening. This exercise will help sharpen our need to be aware of the two time periods we are juggling - the texts' original readers and our own sense of what was important in hindsight.

The second half of the seminar will involve students' selecting and reporting on twentieth-century texts. I hope this will produce a wide range of examples, and that students will track down influential texts in their own areas of interest. For example, the student of politics might present Wilson's 14 Points, King's "I have a dream" or letter from Birmingham Jail. The biologist might discuss the Watson-Crick paper on DNA. Literary examples might contrast a respectable yet controversial novels like Catcher in the Rye with a sleazy companion like Peyton Place.

Student presentations will include how the texts were published, publicized, and reported on (in newspapers and magazines), what influence the authors intended and how well that influence was taken up by the obvious target audience as well as the general public. We will also discuss other ways that texts continue to be influential, e.g., through movies, high school and college courses, and (if it comes to that), sweatshirts and bumper stickers.

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Department of English, University of Minnesota
URL: http://English.cla.umn.edu/FacultyProfiles/Ross/Courses/
Please send comments to: Donald Ross
Last revised 15 November 1999

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