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POLS 211-01, Politics and Literature, Spring 2008
Cullen, Daniel E.
Cullen, Daniel E.
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Political Science, Department of, Syllabus, Curriculum, Academic departments, Text, 2008 Spring
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Abstract
This course is devoted to literary expressions and examinations of American life
and its animating principles. It highlights certain issues in American experience, lifting
up particular problems or questions for special scrutiny; the course will inquire generally
about how the American regime (the combination of ideas, institutions, beliefs, and
mores) shapes American character for better or worse.
The American experiment was bound up with the assertion of natural rights, and
with a sense that this was somehow ��nature��s nation,�� a people capable of a new
beginning and therefore, perhaps, of a more perfect social union. Some writers evoked
the vision of an ��American Adam,�� and a new Eden. At the same time, the very
dynamism and progressive spirit of American culture�� raised doubts about the harmony
between nature and an increasingly technological civilization. Several of the literary
works that we will read in this course dramatize the tension between nature and
civilization, and consider various responses to it. Do individual and social happiness
involve remaining close to nature or leaving it in the pursuit of mastery? Are those ends
compatible, or is individual flourishing and personal identity somehow at odds with the
perfection of social union? Another fundamental issue for us will be the scar of racial
injustice and its lingering effects on the American psyche and society.
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This syllabus was submitted to the Rhodes College Office of Academic Affairs by the course instructor.