Re: Project Summary: The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature
Dear colleagues, friends, and contributors,
Happy New Year: let us celebrate ourselves! The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature had quite amazing run in 2017, as a dedicated group of students, librarians, editors, scholars, and faculty fleshed out the initial framework of a new OER textbook for use in Early American Literature survey courses. Click here for a sneak peek at the great progress we’ve made together.
Our New Year’s resolution? To finish by the summer of 2018, giving us time to promote the anthology for its launch in Early American Literature classrooms in the coming fall. Thus, there’s more work to be done; and if you’d like to be a part of this exciting project, – or if you’re a returning champ – we’re searching once more for contributors!
If you’re hearing about the project for the first time, well, hello! We’re the team building out the Early American Literature OER anthology that began as a student-driven project in Robin Derosa’s course at Plymouth State University; it received great press in this recent Inside Higher Ed piece. Here you can read a little more about the conception of the project since I’ve assumed the editorship. Then I went a little more in depth about teaching with the anthology in the Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students.
Sold yet? Alright, here’s what we need: writers and editors with an interest in and knowledge of American Literature. More specifically, we’re looking for folks to write brief author introductions, locate and excerpt readable texts, and/or compose introductions to the major topical and historical sections of the anthology. More information and guidelines for each task can be found at the links below:
You should also peruse and pencil yourself in on the master spreadsheet, and then introduce yourself at our Rebus Community discussion forum.
If you’re looking for a quick overview of what’s available, author introductions and texts are needed for the following authors. Introductions are also needed for the working section titles below.
Pre-, Contact, Colonization (“1491”- 1600s)
“Creation Stories” Introduction
The Book of Genesis (KJV) excerpts
Winnebago Trickster Cycle
Iroqoius Seneca Creation Myth
Seneca Creation Myth
Christopher Columbus
Hernan Cortes
Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
The Requerimiento
Samuel de Champlain
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala
Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz
Louis Hennepin
New England/Puritanism (1600s-1760s)
William Bradford
Thomas Morton
Anne Bradstreet
Edward Taylor
Jonathan Edwards
Revolution and Nation (1760s-1830s)
The Narranganset “Act of Submission”
Pontiac
Samson Occom
Benjamin Franklin
Sarah Kemble Knight
Thomas Jefferson
Olaudah Equiano
Toussaint L’Ouverture
Briton Hammon
Prince Hall
Phillis Wheatley
Susanna Rowson
William Apess
Renaissance/Romanticism (1830s-1890s)
Washington Irving
James Fenimore Cooper
William Cullen Bryant
Edgar Allan Poe
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
John Greenleaf Whittier
Margaret Fuller
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry David Thoreau
Herman Melville
Emily Dickinson
Abolitionism and the Civil War (1840s-1860s)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Frederick Douglass
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Jacobs
Lydia Maria Child
Reconstruction and Realism (1860s-19++)
Rebecca Harding Davis
Mark Twain
Bret Harte
Sarah Winnemucca
Sarah Orne Jewett
Henry James
Emma Lazarus
Edith Wharton
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Theodore Dreiser
Edward Bellamy
Stephen Crane
Willa Cather
Jack London
Finally, please do not hesitate to email me or address the Rebus forum with any questions, ideas, or concerns that arise during the process.
All the best,
Tim