The next meeting of the American Area Seminar will feature Kerry Larson of the University of Michigan on "The Hidden Prospect of Early American Poetry."
Using the so-called prospect or progress poem as a point of departure, this talk explores the verse written in the United States in the late 18th Century from the standpoint of its commitment to the concept of civilization. It asks what it would mean to take this commitment seriously as an aesthetic resource and suggests that our discomfort with the concept of civilization as such blocks our ability to understand the aims and interests of this body of verse. It concludes by considering some of the ways in which early American poetry did, after all, establish some important precedents for poets of subsequent generations.
The Notre Dame American Area Seminar is a collective of faculty and graduate students from English and affiliated departments meeting monthly to discuss the most exciting new work in the field. For more information, contact Matt Wilkens (mwilkens@nd.edu).