ENGL 057A. U.S. Empire Literature

Born as a democratic republic, the United States has from its inception also been celebrated as an empire-a tendency that culminated in wars and thereafter started to be disavowed. This course reads accounts by the colonizer and by the colonized, within and outside America, to study the paradox of empire (the anti-imperialist imperialism?) that symptomatizes the contradiction of U.S. sovereignty. After examining theories of the U.S. as (the opposite of) an empire, we will read literature from or about the three phases of U.S. imperialism. First, we will look at the development of the American West-also known as indigenous lands (focusing on Aztlán and the Blackfeet)-and the hybridity it entailed. Next, we will chart the extension of U.S. Western Expansion abroad around 1898, when, continuing European modernity, the U.S. conspired to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii, annexed Spain’s remaining colonies-notably, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines-and dominated the Western Hemisphere. Finally, we will explore U.S. world-building after World War II in the context of the Cold War and of 9/11 via the conjunction not only of politics and economics but also of militarism and multiculturalism-in particular, in South America, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. In tracing this geopolitical genealogy through historical and literary texts, we will consider how the U.S. represents itself as the antithesis of empire amid attempts by its subjects to narrate another (hi)story. Readings may include American Progress, The Revenant, Borderlands / La Frontera, Fools Crow, Martí’s journalism, “To Roosevelt,” “The White Man’s Burden,” the debate over expansionism, Billy Budd, Sailor, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen, Boy Scouts in the Philippines, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Call Her Ganda, Through the Arc of the Rainforest, Human Acts, and Missionaries. This course may be combined with another in the ENGL 057 series into an Honors Preparation course (pending instructor approval).
Prerequisite: At least one W course.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Eligible for CPLT, GLBL-Paired, PEAC
Spring 2026. Ku.
Catalog chapter: English Literature
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature

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