Course Instructor: Tara Fee
In 1620, a small band of self-exiled English travelers disembarked from a wooden ship onto New England shores. Weary from weeks on storm-tossed seas, they nurtured tender hopes for a bright community unified by their love for God and one another. But only half of them would survive the coming year, and those survivors would battle hunger, Indian attacks, hostage-takings, religious discord, waves of immigration, political anxiety, and social unrest-as well as the darkness of their own souls. This seminar will explore their struggles, with special focus on moments of controversy and crisis, including the Antinomian Crisis (antinomian = against the law) and the Salem Witch Trials. Students should expect to immerse themselves in historical role-playing and the reading of primary source documents, historical studies, and literary representations, such as Boyer and Nissenbaum's Salem Possessed and Arthur Miller's The Crucible.