Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/American Culture 204 (Frank Kelderman)/Course description

Course description
Europeans didn’t “discover” America, nor did they tame a “wilderness.” Instead, they travelled through Native American spaces that were historically rich and culturally diverse—and often had clearly defined political borders. But how was this reflected in early American travel writings? How did native and non-native writers reflect on what it meant to move and be moved? And how did travel writing reflect on—and shape—the relations between American Indian nations and the United States? This course studies early American travel literature from roughly 1600 to 1850. It explores how travel literature of the colonial and early national US period underscore how the United States and the Native New World were shaped through moments of mutual exchange, misunderstandings, and shifting power dynamics. Rather than accepting the United States as a “given” outcome of colonial contact, we will focus on the way Indian nations and the US were shaped by deep understanding of and engagement with the other. We will adopt a broad understanding of “literature” that includes travel narratives, ethnographies, magazines, autobiography, poems, novels, and visual art. As we read these texts, we will consider the nature of “encounter” at various historical moments. Alternately denoting cooperation, violent confrontation, and conquest, these encounters shaped a culture in which constantly changing relations between American Indians and Europeans marked the open-ended nature of colonial claims and national boundaries. American Culture 204 is intended for first-year students, sophomores, and juniors who want to strengthen their skills in analytical reading and writing in the humanities, and gain a deeper understanding of key issues and approaches in American Studies and related fields. It is designed for students who have little or no background in American Studies and will prepare students for more advanced American Culture courses. The course materials will be relevant to those who want to deepen their understanding of how the circulation of printed texts was bound up with colonization, the creation and challenging of notions of race, and the invention and consolidation of national identities.

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