32402

WiSe 21/22: Gender, Legitimacy, and Expansion in Antebellum America

Maximilian Klose

Comments

The decades before the Civil War were an era of expansion in the United States – both territorially and ideologically. War with Mexico and forced displacement of Native Americans brought ever greater parts of North America under U.S. rule, closing the frontier a little more each day. Meanwhile, the Monroe Doctrine declared the entire western hemisphere to be the country’s sphere of influence. Once new territories were acquired, North and South fought ideological battles over their admission to the union as free or slave states. The seminar investigates the role of gendered discourses and practices in U.S. debates over the outlook of this Manifest Destiny. In internal debates over the future of the union as well as in conflicts with others, gendered languages determined which values should prevail in the United States, how they should be spread, and why. How did relevant actors justify expansion through masculine discourses of paternalism and a right to dominance? Did white actors suppress racial others (African Americans, Natives, or Mexicans) through discourses of emasculation, feminization, or a supposedly uncivilized hyper-masculinity? How did both men and women in the South justify the preservation of their way of life by adhering to gendered traditions of lady’s hospitality and gentlemen’s chivalry? The seminar will investigate those and other questions through close readings of literature and archive material. It will introduce several pertinent theories from the field of gender studies and apply those to different contexts of region, race, and class. close

16 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Mon, 12:00 - 14:00 16 Class schedule

Mon, 2021-10-18 12:00 - 14:00

Lecturers:
Maximilian Klose