Literature and Arts A-86: American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac
Instructor: John Stauffer and Timothy McCarthy
Semester: Spring 2008
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Literature and Arts A-86: American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac
This blog was inspired by Literature and Arts A-86: American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac by John Stauffer and Timothy McCarthy

Lecture 1: The Age of Revolution
February 4th, 2008
Welcome to the wonderful world of American Protest Literature. I am one of the grad student instructors for the course, and I'll be posting a new blog for each lecture. I'm a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department, and I happen to have taught with John Stauffer before. Professor Stauffer is a tenured...
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Lecture 2: Declaring Independence
February 6th, 2008
McCarthy begins today’s lecture by arguing that the most radical part of the declaration is its articulation of equality as a fundamental ideal to pursue, but he also points to an important distinction in Jefferson’s particular articulation. That is, for Locke, equality is a natural state of...
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Lecture 3: Slavery and Abolition
February 11th, 2008
Our esteemed lecturers have encouraged the students – from all points along the political spectrum – to inform the class of any acts of protest happening locally. Someone from the Harvard Anti-War Coalition (HAWC!) informs the class that they meet every Wednesday at noon in Harvard Yard to have...
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Lecture 4: Wars and Words
February 13th, 2008
Today we are inching closer to the Civil War, which will surely be perilously close next week, when we discuss Uncle Tom's Cabin - the book that, in theory, started the whole mess. McCarthy begins today's lecture with Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” (1848), which has its origins in...
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Lecture 5: John Brown
February 20th, 2008
Before today’s lecture, the protest music coming through the speakers is a rendition of “Amazing Grace” led by someone who sounds remarkably like Jimmy Durante. You’d really have to hear it to believe it. Taking up Whitman again, Stauffer looks at the preface of Song of Myself to note how...
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Lecture 6: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
February 22nd, 2008
Reading: Uncle Tom's Cabin (Read with commentary on TheFinalClub.org) We begin today’s lecture with a painting from Jacob Lawrence’s series devoted to John Brown (you can find all 22 images here). One of the common visual themes in Lawrence’s series is his depiction of John Brown either as...
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Lecture 7: Civil War Violence and the Rise of Realism
February 25th, 2008
Readings: "The Constitution of the Confederate States of America" and Rebecca Harding Davis, "Life in the Iron-Mills" Today’s lecture begins with a horrifying photograph of a starving, emaciated Civil War prisoner, which was originally requested for medical purposes (foreshadowing the medical experiments...
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Lecture 8: Native American and Feminist Protests
February 27th, 2008
Professor Stauffer picks up where we left off last week by talking about realism as an international phenomenon that responds to modernization, the incorporation of industries, the rise of bureaucracies and the alienation that comes from this massive social transformation. Modernization also features...
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Lecture 9: Lynching and Ida B. Wells Barnett
March 4th, 2008
Today’s lecture begins with a warning: graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised. The lecture will end with a series of photographs of lynchings in the South. It’s the ugly truth, and this course wouldn’t be true to the tradition of protest literature – a tradition invested in exposing...
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Lecture 10: The Souls of Black Folk
March 6th, 2008
Reading: W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk. Background on W. E. B. Du Bois: He was born in 1868, the year of the 14th amendment’s ratification, and died on the morning of the March on Washington in 1963. Professor McCarthy points out that this effectively means that his life spanned...
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Lecture 11: Socialism and Social Darwinism
March 10th, 2008
Readings: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle Herbert Spencer, "The Proper Sphere of Government" and "On Social Evolution" This lecture begins with a broad question: Why is there no socialism in the United States? Professor McCarthy begins to answer that question by noting that among the many myths...
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Lecture 12: Muckraking and Genre Anxiety
March 12th, 2008
Readings: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle HBO's The Wire   Jamie Jones, the Head TF for Protest Lit, will deliver today’s lecture on Muckraking. In addition to being a Ph.D. candidate, she spent years working at the Boston Globe and is well-versed in the history and aesthetics of journalism. The...
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Lecture 13: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
March 17th, 2008
Reading: James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Zoe Trodd, a Ph.D. candidate in American Civilization, delivers today’s lecture. She is, among other things, the editor of American Protest Literature, a compilation of writings from the protest tradition. She begins by noting...
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Lecture 14: Let Us Continue to Praise Famous Men
March 20th, 2008
Reading: James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Today is the third installment in our guest lecture triple-header (Stauffer and McCarthy are preparing themselves, apparently, for a strenuous post-Spring Break extravaganza. Stay tuned!). Celeste-Marie Bernier comes to us all...
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Lecture 15: The Grapes of Wrath
April 1st, 2008
Reading: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Stauffer and McCarthy are back in business after Spring Break, and the business at hand is one of the most popular books in history: The Grapes of Wrath. McCarthy begins with some background on the Dust Bowl – the agricultural crisis of the southern plains...
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Lecture 16: More Grapes, More Wrath
April 3rd, 2008
The intro music for today’s lecture is Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” which is a tribute to Tom’s speech posted at the beginning of the last blog. To change things up, Stauffer begins lecture today and talks about the forms of resistance in The Grapes of Wrath. Stauffer...
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Lecture 17: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement
April 8th, 2008
Readings: "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech Professor Stauffer begins by referring to the Civil Rights era (from roughly 1945-1970) as the second of two Great Awakenings in American social history. The first great awakening was the Civil War era. Pressing...
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Lecture 18: MLK, Malcolm X and James Baldwin
April 10th, 2008
Readings: Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time. McCarthy begins lecture today by noting that King evolved considerably over time and that the great influence of his “I Have a Dream” speech is that it tends to freeze him into a particular,...
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Lecture 19: Two Feminist Voices
April 16th, 2008
Readings: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; Audrey Lorde, Sister Outsider. Professor McCarthy begins today’s lecture with a brief sketch of the life of his grandmother. Grandma McCarthy (was it his paternal grandmother?) was the oldest of 16 Irish immigrant children. Her father made it...
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Lecture 20: Tony Kushner and Gay Liberation
April 20th, 2008
Reading: Tony Kushner, Angels in America It may not capture the spirit of the apocalypse and the scourge of AIDS featured in Angels in America, but it’s gay-friendly nonetheless: students were greeted as they walked into lecture today with “YMCA” by The Village People (and you thought a Christian...
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Lecture 21: Kevin Bales - The New Slavery
April 22nd, 2008
Reading: Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy Today’s guest lecture is by Kevin Bales, the author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Bales is a modern-day abolitionist, an academic and an activist. He is the president of Free the Slaves (www...
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Lecture 22: Vietnam and New Journalism
April 24th, 2008
Reading: Michael Herr, Dispatches The intro music today’s lecture is Bob Dylan's “Blowin’ in the Wind” followed by “Masters of War.” Welcome to the Vietnam era. Professor McCarthy begins where the last blog post ended. He wants to clarify a few things on behalf of Kevin Bales...
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Lecture 23: Damn Hippies
April 27th, 2008
Material: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975 film) and speeches by Spiro Agnew and Ronald Reagan There’s more Bob Dylan to go around at the beginning of today’s lecture. This time it’s from the infamous “Dylan goes electric” era: “Like a Rolling Stone.” But there’s something amiss...
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Lecture 24: Indians and Cowboys
April 30th, 2008
Readings: Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee; Vine Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins Professor Stauffer is working overtime (or full time) because McCarthy is out again today. In any case, the duo will be reunited for the final lecture coming up. Stauffer begins a discussion...
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Final Lecture: Hip Hop Hits Harvard
May 1st, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is it. The end of the line. We’re listening to Tupac’s “Changes” as the students take their seats before the last lecture begins.   Before diving into hip hop, Stauffer wants us to consider the images from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal...
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