NOTE: Course information changes frequently, including Methods of Instruction. Please revisit these pages periodically for the most recent and up-to-date course information.

This seminar interrogates friendship in theory and in practice in Anglophone colonial America. Friendship, when satisfying, seems simple andstraightforward, a meeting of like minds and hearts. But early Americans just as often as not experienced disorienting frustrations in their intimate social lives, dissatisfactions that led them to reflect more broadly on problems inherent to civic and political community, as well as problems unique to collective life the colonial context. This course hones skills of close reading on literary, documentary, and philosophical texts, examining them for the challenges to friendship that their manifest and latent contents propose. Students will write a shorter midterm paper (8-10 pp) and a longer final paper (15-20 pp) to showcase their apprehension of the course content. Readings indicated for a particular week should be completed by that week.