What are the literal and figurative threats to Winthrop’s community as expressed in “A Model of Christian Charity”? In what ways are they like and unlike those noted by Bradford? What sorts of language and images does Winthrop use in his journal to illustrate these threats?
Monthly Archives: September 2013
Bradford and Morton
How would you compare Bradford’s first sighting of the continent with other first sightings we have seen, e.g. Columbus, Vespucci. What do the differences between them suggest about the viewers and their purposes in the Americas? In the absence of cannibals and amazons, what are the primary symbolic and literal threats to Bradford’s colony and how do they change over time?
Virgina: Smith and Harriot
How does Harriot’s account of the Virginia natives differ from those of the Spanish we have read? What do these differences suggest about Harriot’s imagined terms of settlement in Virginia?
OR
Think about the differences between Smith’s and Harriot’s accounts of settlement in Virginia? What are the differences in the way they describe the region and its inhabitants? What do those differences tell us about the two explorers and writers?
Manhood and Conquest: Castillo, de Cuneo, de las Casas, and others
Would you say that Diaz del Castillo and de Cuneo demonstrate a similar or different ideas about the role of Spanish conquerors in the new world? To what extent are their understandings of conquest informed by particular understandings and ideals of heroic masculinity?
Cannibals and Amazons in the New World
What do these writers see as the central differences between “Indians” and the “Spanish”? How are these differences imagined through sexual and other social practices? How would you characterize the ideas of European masculinity in some of these writings?