American Captivity
Course Description
Summary
The captivity narrative is a uniquely American literary form, a distinct, adventure-driven offshoot of the Puritan spiritual autobiography--with affinities to the slave narrative--that has more in common with today's reality-based media programming that you might think. We'll spend the term looking closely at the captivity narratives that form the canon, beginning with the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682), and charting developments in the genre as it exploded with the so-called Indian wars between the U.S. and the Plains peoples in the 19th Century. We'll also read inversions of the narrative, like Leslie Marmon Silko's Gardens in the Dunes, and poet Shane McCrae's remarkable contemporary update, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping (2023). Students will write frequent response papers, perform research with primary documents for an in-class presentation, and have the option of writing a fictional captivity narrative of their own for a final project.
Learning Outcomes
- Students in this course will develop their own capacities to do the following:
--Perform close readings of both primary and scholarly texts and subject them to a sophisticated analysis.
-- Write clearly and persuasively about the texts they encounter and the ideas that animate them.
--Develop and communicate their own ideas as literary citizens in class discussion, in both critical and creative writing assignments, and in oral presentations.
--Conduct independent and collaborative research projects using library materials, online databases, and other sources.
Prerequisites
Interested students should email a piece of critical or creative writing (5 pp. or more) to banastas@bennington.edu by XXXX. Students admitted to class will be notified by email on XXXX.
Please contact the faculty member : banastas@bennington.edu
Corequisites
All students in 4000-level Literature classes are required to attend Wednesday evening Literature events, including Poetry at ¿ÐýÃŹÙÍø, unless there is a documented conflict.