This class will consider the role of the “captivity narrative” in American literature and in the American social imaginary. To what degree, we will ask, does the shifting function and uptake of this genre, from the colonial period and across the 19th century, reveal particular anxieties about what, exactly, constitutes “American” identity? What do these stories reveal about the relationship between race and nation? What do they tell us about faith and discipline, historic gender roles, and the righteousness of American expansion? While privileging an inquiry that addresses the captivity narrative in relation to colonial and American literature prior to 1900, we will also consider the uptake of such narratives in American cinema after the Second World War, attending to the cultural and political function of this post-war repurposing.

Literatures will likely include, but not be limited to: Maria Martin, Mary Rowlandson, Roger Williams, Lydia Maria Child, James Fenimore Cooper, Zitkala-Sa