Seminar Reports

Each student will be responsible for researching, developing and presenting 10-15-minute seminar reports on TWO of the topics below.

Specific Requirements:

• Each presentation should present an overview of the topic as it relates to American authorship, along with some specific examples from and connections to the text(s) being discussed in class that day. In other words, each presentation should help the class look beyond as well as more deeply within the current reading;
• Each presentation should incorporate relevant images: this can be done via PowerPoint, overhead transparencies, or a Web page combining text and images relevant to your topic (be sure to correctly cite sources that you use);
• Each presentation should also include a 1-2-page handout (you will need 12 copies), which combines text and images, and includes a bibliography of relevant sources.
  
  

General Guidelines:
I'll be happy to meet with you about your topic or presentation. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to discuss them with me.

• As part of your presentation, plan to lead the class through some specific examples from the work being discussed in class that day that illustrate or relate to your topic.
• The upper time limit of 15 minutes will be strictly enforced. Practice and time your presentation before your presentation date.
• If you will need to use media equipment not already in the room (e.g. a laptop), be sure to reserve it through ITSS in KPlz 175).
• Grades will be based on my evaluation of the substance and quality of the presentation as a whole and will count as 10% of your course grade. Our schedule is too full to permit the rescheduling of presentations.
  
  

Beginning Your Research:
A good place to start is the UMD Library's reference department with works such as

• The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Edited by Jay Parinin, editor-in-chief. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2004. PS 21 .E537 2004 Moffitt Reference PS 21 .E537 2004 Non-Circulating
• The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James David Hart. 6th ed. New York : Oxford University Press, 1995. PS 21 .H3 1995 Non-Circulating

These reference works can provide useful overviews of your topic and related people and issues, and often offer topic bibliographies as well.

The UMD Library catalogue and subject databases will help you find books and articles related to your topic. For biographical background, the Dictionary of Literary Biography and Dictionary of National Biography are good places to start. For topics on literary publication and reception, be sure to check out Literature Criticism Online. For other topics, Literature Online can be a good first database to search.

There are many Web resources related to the following presentation topics. A good place to begin is

• Voice of the Shuttle's American Literature page
• The American Studies Web
• The American Literature Sites site
• Jack Lynch's Literary Resources - American page from Rutgers.
  
  

I will also be happy to meet with you to discuss possible sources, but be sure to schedule your meeting as early in your research process as possible.

Topics
See the schedule for the dates of each presentation:

1. Washington Irving and American authorship
2. Literary Nationalism
3. Ralph Waldo Emerson and American authorship
4. The Lyceum Movement
5. Edgar Allen Poe and American authorship
6. Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (and American authorship)
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne and American authorship
8. American Romanticism and authorship
9. Gender and Authorship
10. Fanny Fern and American authorship
11. New England and national authorship
12. Sentimental Fiction and authorship
13. The Beechers (Lyman, Harriet, Henry Ward)
14. Domesticity and American authorship.
15. Frederick Douglass, Abolitionism, and Slave Narratives
16. Wayne Booth and the rhetorical approach to literature
17. "History of the Book" approach and authorship
18. New Historicism and authorship
19. Feminist Literary Criticism and its re-visions of authorship
20. Disciplinarity, Canonicity, and Authorship
21. The New Woman and American authorship
22. Literary Regionalism and American authorship