Il survey course per 6 CFU prevede la discussione dei seguenti testi e delle seguenti tematiche:

I puritani, gli indiani, la wilderness e la caccia alle streghe:
-John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630);
-Mary Rowlandson, “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” (First, Second, Third, Twelfth, and Twentieth Remove), (1682);
- Cotton Mather, “The Wonders of the Invisible World” (1692);
-Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” (1835);

Gli Stati Uniti e i miti di fondazione:
-Declaration of Independence (1776);
- Benjamin Franklin, “The Authobiography” (1791-1868) pp. 254-269; 297-308 Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter Eight Edition;
-Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” (1819);

“The peculiar institution”: l'American, la schiavitù e il discorso razziale:
-Fredrick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave (1845);

The American Renaissance: forme e figure della cultura Americana di metà Ottocento:
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (1837);
-Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839);
-Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Minister’s Black Veil” (1832), “Wakefield” (1835), “Rappacini’s Daughter” (1844);
-Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (1855);
-Emily Dickinson, “Success is counted sweetest”, “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”, "There is a certain Slant of light";

Nascita del mercato, della società di massa e del consumo nell’Antebellum America:
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), “The Raven” (1845), “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846);
-Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853);

Bibliografia critica:
-Norton Anthology of American Literature (Preferibilmente la 8th Shorter Edition, altrimenti qualsiasi edizione disponibile in biblioteca):
LITERATURE TO 1620: Introduction and Timeline
EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE 1620-1820: Introduction and Timeline
AMERICAN LITERATURE 1820-1865: Introduction and Timeline
INTRODUZIONE AI SINGOLI AUTORI DEL PROGRAMMA;
-BENDIXEN, Alfred, “Towards History and Beyond: Hawthorne and the American Short Story”, in Bendixen, Alfred and Nagel, James, ed. by, A Companion to the America Short-Story, Blackwell, 2010, pp. 50- 67.