English 203

Other Readings and Media

Jonathan Edwards, A Jonathan Edwards Reader (Yale); Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (Penguin); Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Penguin); Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Essays (Penguin); Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience (Penguin); Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (Penguin); William James, The Writings of William James. (University of Chicago Press)

Description

We will study the (mostly) productive tension between consolidating and dispersing impulses in American philosophical literature. Most of the discussion time will be spent on close reading, but members of the class will on occasion present secondary critical materials they have found instructive. Two ten-page essays will be required, one about halfway through, the other at the end.