In “A Model of Christian Charity”—arguably the foundational document of American literature, politics, and culture—John Winthrop calls on his fellow Puritans to “love one another with a pure heart,” to “bear one another’s burdens,”  “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with  . . . God.”  Figuring the Puritan colonists as God’s chosen people and their community as “A City on a Hill,” Winthrop creates a rhetoric of American exceptionalism that will long echo through America’s national history. 

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this course will explore the surprising and sometimes violent  consequences of Winthrop’s utopian vision of Christian community,  demonstrating how “A Model of Christian Charity” also serves as political warrant for aggression.  

Tracing the Puritan influence on the American imagination via literature, we will examine the ethos of American charity alongside history—from the Salem witchcraft trials to Manifest Destiny to McCathyism and beyond.