The Impact of New Worlds on Cultural Identity

Instructor: Professor Julie E. Keenan
               Department of English

This course considers the question of how cultural values of western civilization have been shaped by a colonialist past. In particular, we will ask: How did explorers justify their efforts to colonize? In what ways were their belief systems - religious, legal, social - threatened by those of the societies they encountered? In what ways was their cultural identity altered or preserved? The main focus is on writings from the 1600s, but dips back into older texts (Herodotus' Histories and Marco Polo's Travels), forward into a few modern ones (Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes), as well as into texts dealing with contemporary issues - immigration, the war in Iraq - of American cultural identity. Readings: travelogues, maps, some essays, some literary works (three plays, part of an epic/romance, a novel, a short story), some current (2008) journalism, and some literary criticism.