Introduction

I’m Andrew Dornon, a sophomore/junior and English major and Spanish minor.  I’m the Snark editor for the Megaphone and a translator of dissident Cuban blogs.  Therefore, being left with very few applicable skills after SU, I will probably pursue the life of a perpetual student.  Within the field of literature, I am most interested in its possibe uses for subversion and how literary theory can be applied to an even  wider variety of texts than it already has been, such as video games, tattoos and tobacco advertisments.

As far as Wieland is concerned, along with apparently everyone else in the class, I have been pleasantly surprised.  The novel is certainly an intriguing textual artifact, as well as a fairly enjoyable one.  It is involved in the debate between the Enlightment/religion and natural/supernatural that raged then and continues to rage today.  Perhaps more interestingly, Brown doesn’t seem to really take a stance on it.  Although it might appear that all of the “supernatural” occurrences which befall the youngest Wielands can be attributed to Carwin, their father’s death cannot be explained in any rational way.  Also at work within the text are strange underminings of the prevailing sexual mores, as well as the desecration of the father’s temple, which I can’t help but read as Oedipal.  While creepy Freudian relationships are fun, perhaps even more fun is the exciting Wieland cover below.

Introduction

I’m Caitlin McCown, a graduating senior and an American Studies major. I’m still processing the idea that this is my last semester at SU. At the same time I’m also trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with myself in May. I plan on spending a lot more time in Career Services this spring, to say the least… This semester last year I was in Santiago de Chile and, having been bitten by the travel bug, my new goal in life is to find a way to see more of the world while getting paid to do it. So seventh-best Career Services center in the nation, please give me hope. Shameless plug: here is a link to the blog I kept for my family and friends during my study abroad if you at any time find yourself needing a way/reason to procrastinate. Not for this class though, of course…

And speaking of, I must say that I’ve been quite surprised by how hooked I am on Wieland. The Carwin-in-the-Closet scene upped my blood pressure an unnatural amount for a novel published in 1798. And I haven’t delved too deeply into any of these, but a few concepts that stand out to me during my reading thus far have been…

- With regard to the murder/suffocation conversation in Clara’s room, what does it mean that “danger” no longer only lurks outside in nature, but has now infiltrated their secluded homes?

- What exactly is the role of Carwin in terms of the American Revolution story when paralleled?

- Why does Wieland remind me of an antiquated and drawn-out episode of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” The group meetings in the Temple in the woods, the blurred line between reality and the supernatural, voices, warnings and mysteriously shady characters? Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story…Wieland.

Introduction

I’m Cameron Clinton and I’m a junior at Southwestern. Last semester I studied abroad at Queen Mary University of London and I’m very excited to be back at SU and jumping back into a very busy routine. I’m a Biology/English double major, with plans to continue to medical school after Southwestern.  My obviously conflicted major is more of a refusal to drop interests than some hidden stroke of brilliance in which I’ve figured out a way to combine them. As for the English side of my studies, I’m particularly interested in the representation of science through literature as well as their dialogue – so far Wieland is right up my alley because of this.

I believe this is my first class that has focused on such an early time period in literature, but from what I’ve read so far it’s not as bad/uninteresting as I expected it to be. I think Dr. Stockton was very right when she mentioned our typical view of the time period as very homogenous and dry. The dark humor in Wieland along with a cast of characters with very different/conflicting viewpoints has already done some work to dispel my prior reservations.

I think the most memorable thing that happened during the first reading section was the spontaneous combustion event. In class, we talked a lot about rationalizations and I was interested in what rationalizations have been offered for such an event. From a very minimal search, it seems that in most cases it is thought that the source of spark is external (typically cigarettes) with the subcutaneous fat acting like a wick in a candle… Often the victim (right word?) has been/is assumed to have been drinking, with the drunken stupor leading to the carelessness of dropping a cigarette/igniting themselves in various other ways. I don’t know about you, but I find the image of the father Wieland sneaking out to his “temple” every 6 hours to have a cigarette even more hilarious than spontaneous combustion…



Introduction

Hey everyone! My name is Amanda Barnett and I am a senior Biology Major/English Minor. I am not sure what my plans are after graduation but I am considering grad school in literature. I am the vice president of Colleges Against Cancer and a member of the biology honor society. I am very excited about this class, especially after starting to read Wieland and really enjoying it. I look forward to more discussions like today’s!

Introduction

My name is Staci Rives, and I’m a senior Political Science major.  When I graduate in May, I hope to stay in Austin and work in the state capitol. I did an internship in the 81st legislative session for State Representative Dan Gattis, who represents Milam and part of Williamson county. It was a valuable experience that I enjoyed tremendously. I love all of the political science classes I have taken here at SU, but I thought it would be good to step out of my comfort zone this last semester and take this class. It seems interesting and I’m looking forward to reading the hopefully not-too-terribly-boring books. I ordered them all online last week, and they have all arrived, except for Wieland, of course. So I am already behind in the reading, and I apologize for that.

To say a little bit more about myself, I am also a member of College Republicans and Zeta Tau Alpha. I love my sorority and truly treasure all of my sisters. Zeta has been the most amazing part of my college experience. I used to be a member of the SU swim team, but injuries and emotional baggage forced me to quit. I still love the water, though, especially the ocean, and enjoy being out in the sun as much as possible. I hope to go to India one day (soon). Last year I acquired an intense fascination for the Buddha, and I would love to climb up Borobudur and meditate.

Intro Post

Hello, my name is Kolby Harper.  I am an English major and Art History minor.  I am a junior and a transfer student.  I transferred last spring from Texas State University and am glad that I did.  The ability to have a class discussion is such a refreshing change, in a class of 300 it never is much of an option.  I am greatly enjoying my time here at Southwestern and look forward to this class, despite the dire warning of boredom.  I have taken classes focusing on Early American writers and enjoyed it overall.  I find it difficult to say that I like American or British or any other general group of literature better than another.  I tend to like individual books for differing reasons, so my preferences fall into many different categories.  Essentially, I love to read and discuss that reading.  I am really looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say about these books.

I was really excited about this class but the disclaimer that we received, I’ll admit, was a little bit of a downer.  So, I was pleasantly surprised when I started Wieland and didn’t fall asleep immediately.  Instead, I kept reading and was interested.  Having had some contact with Early American works, I knew exactly the kind of dry descriptive pieces Dr. Stockton was referring to and was worried about this.  Wieland, at least so far and for me, has been compelling.  All the topics that have been mentioned so far, like the alignment of science and religion and power within these households, should make for enlightening discussion.  The uncertainty that each character is made to experience and its effect on them seems significant.  Of course my comments are based on the short amount that we’ve read, but the mysterious occurrences appear to have fairly damaging psychological repercussions on these group.  Each character in turn is made to question their own sanity and senses, lose their intellectual and rational credibility when they explain these events to the others, who have little choice but to doubt the validity of such things, and even suffer a great amount of emotional turmoil, like Pleyle upon hearing about the death of his love.  What may be even worse is that the benevolence of whatever this is seems to be taken for granted, by Clara at least.  On the bottom of page 42 and top of 43 she expresses how all of this “appeared to have been prompted by beneficent intentions.”  I don’t know what is causing these events or what its motives are, but I do find it suspicious.  This group of learned people should, perhaps, be less trusting.  It seems like beneficent intentions should produce more beneficent results than what we are seeing.

My Intro

My name is Victoria Dominguez and I am a Junior here at Southwestern. I am also a Philosophy major with a Sociology and/or Feminist Studies minor. I hope to get accepted to a graduate program so that I can begin working towards earning a Ph.D. I have always known that I wanted to teach. Initially, I thought I would teach at the high school level. However, I have been dissuaded from doing so by many former teachers and professors because many feel that contemporary high school education focuses too much on how to take the TAKS test. Basically, I would like to be able to teach individuals more than just how to pass a standardized test. That doesn’t seem like education to me. At least, education shouldn’t be about just passing a test.

After hearing that many of the texts would be boring, I was a bit nervous about starting Wieland. I found myself pleasantly surprised though. First, I found the story about Clara’s father to be fascinating. His death is puzzling, supernatural, and overall very curious. I also noticed that Lindsey mentioned above that she was interested by the relationship between Science and Religion. I find those two topics to be particularly interesting as well (I have taken philosophy of religion and philosophy of science here at SU), and I think it would be intriguing to explore that relationship within Wieland. Further, there is a reference to “the Daemon of Socrates” in Wieland. In my ancient philosophy course, we studied “the Daemon of Socrates” and we discussed how Socrates believe daemons connected the divine to the world of men and vice versa. Essentially, messages could be transported between the two through daemons. I found this reference to be important because it highlights the complicated relationship between the supernatural world and the world of reality. When the two worlds are forced to interact, there tends to be severe consequences. I am interested to see the outcome in Wieland.

Sorry! I just thought since I  referred to Lindsey’s post,  I should comment below it. My mistake.

Hooray 19th Century!

My name is Cody Wallace and I’m a senior English major and a member of the women’s golf team here at SU. I just finished my capstone last semester, YAY!, and am taking this class because I love 19th century American literature. I got hooked on it freshman year and never looked back. Hawthorne is my favorite author but I also love modern American works as well. I never could get into British lit though. I just finished reading the first bit of Wieland and I’ve actually found the beginning section about the father quite funny, which I’m thinking was not the author’s intent. I’ve done a lot of research about the 19th century mindset on religion and it directly relates to the father’s somber state of mind that becomes increasingly devoted to the “Divine Majesty.” It’s so Puritan and fantastic. The last few paragraphs of  Chapter I struck me as well. Brown describes the father’s increasingly worsening state but offers no crime committed or specific punishment. His agony appears internal and severe but none of the characters understand his plight. This seems to be recurring theme in literature from this period, the mysterious sin and internal punishment.

Me!…or something less egocentric

I’m Lindsey Moore, a Junior and English major/Political Science minor. I am an aspiring author (through multiple mediums: plays, novels, film, etc. — not picky, I guess) and have often considered the possibility of one day becoming a professional political speechwriter. Jon Favreau is one of my many current heroes. I also loooove to read, mostly because it’s fun, but also because I think it’s the most effective way to learn how to write — as well as develop an understanding about the human condition in general (i.e. how the world works, how it should work, who does what for what reason, power and what it means/where its origins are, etc.). That said, I feel like so many of these ideas are already explored in fascinating ways throughout the brief excerpt of “Wieland” we have read thus far. Religion vs. Science is oftentimes such a powerful and fundamental opposition in our society; it’s interesting to see how different characters on different sides of the spectrum handle the same situation — how a strict devotion to logic and reason compares with a belief in the supernatural and the possibility of miraculous happenings. Gender roles, too, are going to be interesting, I think — particularly with regards to power and who in which household really holds the most influence over others.

In any case, I look forward to our discussions!

Hope I did this correctly.

Welcome!

Welcome to the course blog for English 713, Sex and Sin in Early America. My hope is that this blog will allow us to continue our in-class discussions outside of class. I’ll be interested to see how we might create a different kind of community (and to use one of our course words, affiliation) in this virtual space.  I encourage you to be informal, funny, reflective, innovative, or whatever suits your fancy here. But you should keep two things in mind:
(1) This blog is a public forum. This means that anyone can see your posts. So think about how you want to present yourself to the great virtual mass out there. You might want to think of this site as a professional space, rather than a personal one.
(2) I will pass out a rubric in class (and will post it to our Segue site as well) that should help you understand better how I will evaluate your contributions to this blog.

But for now, use your first post as a chance to introduce yourself, and there is no need to worry about your grade. If you post your introduction (and tag and categorize it correctly) by Thursday, 1/14 for A & C groups and by Sunday, 1/18 for B&D groups, you will receive full credit for the post.  You might also want to discuss your feelings about the course topic or your initial impressions of Wieland.  Regardless, please tag your first post with “introduction” and categorize it as “MetaClass,” as I have done with this post.

I’ll get us started:
I’m Elizabeth Stockton, Assistant Professor of English at Southwestern University. My research specialty is antebellum American literature, and here at SU, I teach a broad range of “early American” literature (so, from the beginning of time up to about 1900!). My particular scholarly interests are: law and literature, women’s literature (especially fiction and journalism), and ethnic studies. I received my PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a place that remains dear to my heart, especially during basketball season.

More personally, I live here in Georgetown with my husband, kid, and two dogs. I like to run, listen to music, and cook.

I also like to visit with students during office hours, so I encourage you to stop by!