History of Ideas: HUHI 6314.

501
Thought, Culture and Society In The United States: Rise Of The Public
Sphere Professor Dennis P. Walsh JO 4.836
Ph: 972.722.2580
Hrs. T/TH 6-7 p.m., after class and by appointment.
E-mail: Dennis.Walsh@UTDallas.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Our seminar will explore the rise of public discourse in early
America, from its licensed limits under the British monarchy and
Puritan/Anglican theocracies of the 17th century to its raucous,
unfettered expression under 19th century Jacksonian democracy--a period
stretching nearly two centuries, from the mid-1600s to the 1830s.
We will investigate the various mediums of public discourse --
newspapers, books, broadsides, sermons, letters, coffeehouses, taverns,
salons, clubs, oratory and postal services -- seeking to understand
their contribution to the deliberate shift from a predominately
religious vision of America to a less theocratic and more enlightened,
republican appreciation of the new nation.
Concentrating on public expression, we will begin HUHI 6314 with
Jurgen Habermas's seminal concept of "The Transformation of the Public
Sphere," seeking to identify exactly what constituted the public sphere
in 17th and 18th centuries America and interrogating the viability of
the public sphere in the development of the emerging democratic
republic. Besides visiting the sometimes competing and collaborating
arenas of public expression, we also will investigate the legal
obstacles to free discourse, including censorship, licensing, seditious
libel, heresy and blasphemy.
This is a course of wide latitude that proposes that printing and
public performance were central to the growth of democracy, having at
its core the proposition that the First Amendment distinguished America
from all other nations of the Earth.
We will read original 17th and 18th century writings as well as
contemporary theoretical works by Jurgen Habermas, Michael Warner,
Leonard W. Levy, David D. Hall, Richard D. Brown, Ian Steel, David D.
Hall and Jon Butler.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Student initiative is critical to the success of the course as each
participant will lead the class in discussing the impact of a specific
medium on public discourse. Topics for class discussion, for example,
may include: the role of coffeehouses (Penny Universities), the
emergence of free newspapers, Congregationalists and Anglican sermons
for/against the American Revolution, the American Glorious Revolution
of 1689, the trial of John Peter Zenger for seditious libel, religious
revivalism as spectacle, the rise of the postal service, colonial
booksellers and printers, the Alien and Sedition Act, public libraries
and the burgeoning of the Penny Press.
Aside from conducting a class session (about 30 minutes in length),
students will be required to write two formal research papers, one
eight pages in length, the other 12 pages. Class participation—your
personal contribution to our public sphere—is essential to the
seminar’s success. All grades will be averaged.
It goes without saying that uninterrupted attendance is expected.
Please contact me in advanced should you need to miss a class. Missing
more than one class is likely to have a negative impact on your grade.
SYLLABUS

This syllabus is tentative! There are likely to be changes to better

suit the pace and content of the seminar.

Jan. 12 I. Introduction. Assignments. Stuart Dynasty. Glorious

Revolution. Religion.

Jan. 19. II. Habermas, Public Sphere. Milton, Aeropagitica. Butler,

Ch. 1, Brown, Ch. 1.

Jan. 26. III. Butler, Chs. 2, 3; Brown, 2.

Feb. 2. IV. Reports: Literacy in Early America: North(a) South (b).

Sermons. Butler, Ch. 5;
Shields, Prologue, Ch. 1.

Feb. 9. V. Reports: Book publishing. Postal Service. Newspapers.

Shields, Chs. 2, 3.

Feb. 16. VI. Reports: Letters, Coffeehouses, Taverns. Brown, Ch. 3.

Feb. 23. VII: Reports: Pamphlets, Zenger trial. Shields, Chs. 4, 5.

Mar. 2. VIII. Reports: Sermons (Revo. War); Newspapers (Revo. War).

Shields, 6. PAPER 1 due.

March SPRING BREAK

Mar. 16. IX. Reports: Clubs (political/secret); Salons/Clubs

(literary). Brown, Ch.4.

Mar.23. X. Reports: Fetes, Magazines. Shields, 7.

Mar. 30. XI. Reports: Education: common (primary); collegiate.

.

April 4. XII. Reports: Novels, First Amendment. Brown, Chs. 5, 6.

April 13. XIII. Alien/Sedition Acts. (open)

April 20. XIV. Image: Jean Baudrillard, Simulations. Sontag, On

Photography. PAPER 2 due.

A partial list of recommended readings:

Brown, Richard D. Knowledge is Power: The Diffusion of Information in
Early America, 1700-1865. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989.

Brown, Richard D. The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed

Citizenry in America, 1650-1870. Chapel Hill: The Univ. of North
Carolina Press, 1996.

Butler, Jon. Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776. Cambridge,

Ma.:Harvard Univ. Press, 2000.

Habermas and the Public Sphere. Ed., Craig Calhoun. Cambridge, Ma.: The
MIT Press, 1992.

Clark, Sandra. The Elizabethan Pamphleteers: Popular Moralistic

Pamphlets, 1570-1640.
Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1983.

Cressy, David. Coming Over: Migration and Communication between England

and New England in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1987.

Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change:

Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe.
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980.

Eldridge, Larry D. A Distant Heritage: The Growth of Free Speech in

Early America. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1994.

Ellis, Aytoun. The Penny Universities. London: Secker and Warburg,

1956.

Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere:

An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois. Trans. Thomas Burger.
Cambridge, Ma.: The MIT Press, 1991.

Devising Liberty: Preserving and Creating Freedom in the New American

Republic. Ed. David T. Konig. Stanford, Ca.: Stanford Univ. Press,
1995.

Levy, Leonard. Emergence of a Free Press. Oxford; New York: Oxford

Univ. Press, 1985.

Printing and Society in Early America. Eds. William L. Joyce, David D.

Hall, et al.
Worcester, Ma: American Antiquarian Society, 1983.

Shields, David S. Civil Tongues & Polite Letters in British America.

Chapel Hill: The Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Steele, Ian K. The English Atlantic 1675-1740: An Exploration of

Community and Communication. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986.

Starr, Paul. The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern

Communications. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
Warner, Michael. The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the
Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America. Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1990.