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:

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.

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


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

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