English 290.401, University of Pennsylvania Fall 1994 Professor Farah J. Griffin Office Hours: Wednesday 3-5 and by appointment Room 118 MEDITATIONS ON HISTORY: BLACK WOMEN, WRITING AND SLAVERY TEXTS Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted. Sherley Anne Williams, Meditations on History; Dessa Rose. Toni Morrison, Beloved. Octavia Butler, Kindred. Rita Dove, Yellow House on the Corner (Poems) Michelle Cliff, Abeng. Paule Marshall, Praisesong for the Widow. ESSAYS (Reading Packet Available from Campus Copy Center) Toni Morrison, "The Site of Memory." Angela Davis, "Reflections on the Black WomanUs Role in Community of Slaves." Cynthia Wolff, "Margaret Garner: A Cincinnati Story." bell hooks, "Sexism and the Black Female Slave Experience." Patricia Williams, "On Being the Object of Property." Hortense Spillers, "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe." Diana Axelsen, "Women as Victims of Medical Experimentation." bell hooks, "Sexism and the Black Female Slave Experience." Mae Henderson, "Speaking in Tongues." Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, "African American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race." Herbert Gutman, "Send Me Some of My Children's Hair." Rosemary Bray, "Taking Sides Against Ourselves." Helen Vendler, "Blackness and Beyond." June Jordan, "The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America." SCREENINGS 7-9 pm Bennett Hall 201 October 5 Bill Moyers, Interview with Toni Morrison. November 9 Julie Dash, "Daughters of the Dust." November 16 Euzhan Palzy, "Sugar Cane Alley" REQUIREMENTS Attendance/Participation: This is a seminar, not a lecture course. To help facilitate dis- cussion each week two of you will be responsible for raising 1-2 questions or issues that help to frame the reading. Journals: You are required to write 1 page entries on each text, screening, and reading. Consider your journals your personal spaces in which to reflect on readings and other class related events. I will not correct these for writing or grammar, nor will you receive letter grades. Journals will be collected 4 times throughout the semester Two Short Papers: These papers will constitute your formal writing for the course. They are to be analytical and critical. I will hand out suggest- ed questions and/or topics approximately 10 days prior to their due date. Papers are due: September 30, November 4. Projects: You will design your own project in consultation with me. These projects may be research projects, bibliographical essays, creative writing projects, review essays or analytical papers. Projects are due on April. EACH STUDENT WILL PRESENT HIS/HER PROJECT TO THE ENTIRE CLASS AT THE END OF THE TERM. SCHEDULE September 9 INTRODUCTION Week of September 12 Sherley Anne Williams, "Meditations on History" Angela Davis, "Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves" bell hooks, "Sexism and the Black Female Slave Experience" Week of September 19 Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl SEPTEMBER 23: NO CLASS Week of September 26 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Iola Leroy PAPER DUE: SEPTEMBER 30 Week of October 3 Toni Morrison, Beloved Week of October 10 : Morrison Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Margaret Garner, a Cincinnati Story Toni Morrison, Site of Memory Herbert Gutman, Send Me Some of My Children's Hair Week of October 17 Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose Week of October 24 Octavia Butler, Kindred OCTOBER 28 NO CLASS Week of October 31 Rita Dove, Yellow House on the Corner Helen Vendler, "Blackness and Beyond" June Jordan,"The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America" PAPER DUE: NOVEMBER 4 Week of November 7 Michelle Cliff, Abeng Week of November 14 Paule Marshall, Praisesong for the Widow Week of November 21 Mae Henderson, "Speaking in Tongues" Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, "African American Women's History and the Meta Language of Race" PROJECT PRESENTATIONS Three presentations per class. ------------------------------------------------ Farah Jasmine Griffin University of Pennsylvania English 81: Topics in Afro-American Literature AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE AND THE CITY How (does) a dispossessed people, a disenfranchised people, a people without orthodox power, view the cities it inhabits but does not have claim to? --Toni Morrison This course considers the experience of migration and urbanization in selected texts by African-American writers. Our emphasis will be on the ways these writers have portrayed the perils and promise of urban life. In light of this we will consider: how the historical and political moment of production accounts for the different ways the urban experience is represented and how it is reflected in the shape of the narrative itself. This includes an under- standing of the racial, class and gender politics at work in each text. Finally, the film screenings and group projects are of great significance to the course. These extra-literary works and presentations, provide us with the vital historical, social and political backdrop upon which we will build our understanding of each text. REQUIRED READINGS Jean Toomer, Cane Nella Larsen, Quicksand Langston Hughes, Selected Poems Richard Wright, Native Son Ann Petry, The Street James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain Paule Marshall, Brown girl/Brownstones Gwendolyn Brooks, Maude Martha Alex Haley and Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X Toni Morrison, Jazz EXAM TEXTS Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon Film Screenings Celebrating Bird Monk: Straight No Chaser The Many Faces of Lady Day Sarah Vaughan The Price of the Ticket El Hajj Malik El Shabazz REQUIREMENTS 1. Mid-Term - All I.D.s 2. 5-7 Page Critical Essay. Suggested topics will be distributed. 3. Take home final: You will be required to read either Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, or Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. We will meet in study groups to discuss the book prior to your receiving the exam. You will then receive one question which requires a 3 to 5 page answer. 4. Viewing all screened videos and/or films. -------------------------------------------------------------- DRAFT ENGLISH 285 FARAH GRIFFIN VENUS RISING: FICTION, CRITICISM AND THEORY BY BLACK WOMEN This seminar is an introduction to the diverse concerns of contemporary literature, criticism and theory written by black women from throughout the African Diaspora. Each unit will start with a work of fiction, poetry (and perhaps photography or film) and then go on to explore important critical and theoretical essays that share the concerns of the creative texts. However, throughout the course our readings will challenge such strident boundaries between creative, critical and theoretical. Questions of history, narrative, memory and resistance will guide our discussion of each reading. The seminar is designed as a workshop; its success is dependent upon your attendance, participation and engagement. All of us are expected to attend class, read every assignment carefully and come prepared with comments and/or questions. No question or comment is stupid or unworthy of our atten- tion. At times we will encounter very difficult reading and this requires that we be prepared to work through them together. I expect you to be thoroughly engaged in the classroom and related activities. Throughout the semester, I will bring to your attention relevant lectures, exhibitions, documentaries, discussions, films and other events. Please feel free to do the same. When possible we can organize group outings to attend such events in Philadelphia. January 17 Introduction: Elizabeth Alexander, Venus Hottentot January 19 Barbara Christian, "But What Do We Think We're Doing Anyway: The State of Black Feminist Criticism" Mary Helen Washington "The Darkened Eye Restored: Notes toward a Literary History of Black Women" January 24 Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God January 26 Their Eyes Were Watching God Alice Walker, "Looking for Zora," In Search of Our Mother's Gardens January 31 Toni Morrison, Sula February 2 Deborah McDowell, New Directions for Barbara Smith, "Towards a Black Feminist Criticism" Feb 14 Mae Henderson, Speaking in Tongues Feb 16 No class Feb 21 Nella Larsen, Quicksand Feb 23 Quicksand Feb. 28 Deborah McDowell, "Introduction" to Quicksand March 2 Ann DuCille, "Introduction" to The Coupling Convention March 7-9 SPRING BREAK March 14 Pauline Hopkins "Of One Blood" March 16 Hazel Carby, "Introduction" to Reconstructing Womanhood March 21 Carol Boyce Davies, Migratory Subjectivities March 23 Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy March 28 Audrey Lorde, Zami March 30 ATTEND THE SEXUALITY AND VIOLENCE CONFERENCE April 4 Film: Daughters of the Dust April 6 bell hooks and Toni Cade Bambara on "Daughters of the Dust" BLACK FEMINIST "EVENTS" GROUP PRESENTATIONS Each group will not only discuss the relationship of each of the events to the issues we have considered, but will also tell us about the reception of each text. In other words, groups are required to locate reviews of the texts and/or the press surrounding the texts, production or event, in both the main- stream and the African American and feminist press. April 11 The Black Woman Anthology April 13 For Colored Girls April 18 Homegirls Anthology April 20 No Class April 25 The Color Purple April 27 LAST CLASS -- WRAP UP. ---------------------------------------------------------- English 085.001 Fall 1994 Professor Farah Jasmine Griffin Office Hours: Wednesday 3-5 and by appointment Room 118 "VOICES OF THE DAWN": CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS REQUIREMENTS This is a lecture/discussion course, therefore, the first requirement is that you attend regularly. At least one session per week will be devoted to discussion, so come prepared with questions and/or comments. You will be expected to write a 1-2 page response to two of the six films; these are due on the Monday following the screening. Your other written work includes two 3-5 page papers, one midterm and one final. Papers are due: September 23, December 2. Papers = 25% each Midterm = 20 % Final = 30% Periodically, I will pass out brief one page articles or essays. Those of you who choose to write a response to these, in the form of a letter to the author, a position paper, or a journal entry, will receive extra credit. FILM SCREENINGS All films will be screened in Bennett Hall 201 7-9 pm September 14 Bill Moyers with Mukherjee Sept. 21 Mississippi Marsala October 5 Bill Moyers with Toni Morrison October 12 The Joy Luck Club November 2 Daughters of the Dust November 9 Sugar Cane Alley Amy Tan will speak at the Philadelphia Public Library on Monday September 19 at 8 pm. in the Montgomery Auditorium. Tickets are $6.00 and go on sale September 9. For tickets and information, call UpStages at 567-0670. SCHEDULE SEPTEMBER 9: INTRODUCTION I. COMING TO AMERICA/AMERICAN ME WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 12 Jasmine WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 19 How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents II. GENERATIONS...HISTORY WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 26 Joy Luck Club WEEK OF OCTOBER 3 Beloved WEEK OF OCTOBER 10 Beloved OCTOBER 14-17 FALL TERM BREAK WEEK OF OCTOBER 17 Obasan WEEK OF OCTOBER 24 Obasan October 28 MIDTERM WEEK OF OCTOBER 31 Love Medicine III. COMING TO WOMANHOOD/COMING TO VOICE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 7 Abeng WEEK OF NOVEMBER 14 Bastard Out of Carolina WEEK OF NOVEMBER 21 House on Mango Street NOVEMBER 23-27 THANKSGIVING WEEK OF NOVEMBER 28 Silent Dancing WEEK OF DECEMBER 5 Nonfiction Essays by Mukherjee, Morrison, Erdrich, and Allison DECEMBER 12 LAST CLASS ------------------------------------------------------------ Minority Literature Dr. Benay Blend Spring l994 Course objective: This course is a survey of minority literature, featuring African-, Asian-, Native-American and Chicano(a) writers. Themes that will be covered include: cultural identifications, celebrations and rituals, the role of the oral tradition and its transmission and transformation in written works, stylistic innovations, the use of language, writers as individuals and as members of a community. The student should gain a familiar- ity with the group of writers and representative works, develop critical understandings of the literature and its relation to a particularized American experience, and increase his/her skill in reading literature and writing about it. Texts: Terry McMillan, editor, Breaking Ice Ernest Gains, A Gathering of Old Men Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye Louise Erdrich, Tracks Lydia Minatoya, Talking to High Monks in the Snow Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God Jessica Hagedorn, editor, Charlie Chan is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction. Barbara Rice and Sandra Mano, editors, American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context. D. Soyini Madison, editor, The Women That I Am: The Literature of Contemporary Women of Color. Oral Reports: Thirty minutes of class, every other Friday, will be devoted to oral reports, presented by three students, either singly or as a panel. Choose one of the following: 1. Explore another literary work related to one of the books assigned 2. Examine another work in this area by an assigned author In either case, students should summarize the book; describe historical and/ or social-economic background of the situation dealt with in the text; give a brief biographical sketch of the author; be prepared to answer questions from the class. Each oral report should be accompanied by a one-page written summary of the material, due on the same day as the verbal presentation. Evaluation of Grades: There will be two major exams, a final exam, plus two take-home papers. Benay Blend blend@alpha.nsula.edu ------------------------------------------------------ English 970 AFRICAN-AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY Spring 1994 William L. Andrews (University of Kansas) 3126 Wescoe This course will survey major texts in the evolution of African American autobiography. We will read these texts as representative of literary and cultural trends in his history of black American autobiography, as well as for their individual significance. In addition to a careful reading of each primary text, each student will be required 1. to participate substantively in seminar meetings, 2. to lead discussion of one primary text during the semester 3. to write a report on a corresponding text from the secondary list, 4. to become acquainted with the critical literature on this genre, and 5. to write a 20-30 page research term paper. In addition to these requirements, I will expect each student to meet with me to discuss her or his plans for leading discussion and for reporting on the corresponding text from the secondary list. I will also expect each student to meet with me at least once to discuss her or his plans for the term paper. Each student will also be responsible for distributing a copy of her or his report on the secondary text to all members of the seminar. Jan. 11 -- Introduction, Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) 18 -- Jarena Lee, Life and Religious Experience (1836) and Zilpha Elaw, Memoirs (1846) 25 -- Frederick Douglass, Narrative (1845) Feb. 1 -- Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) 8 -- Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) 15 -- Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901) 22 -- William Pickens, Bursting Bonds (1923) Mar. 1 -- Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) 8 -- Richard Wright, Black Boy (1945) 15 -- Richard Wright, American Hunger (1977) 29 -- Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X April 5 -- Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets (1967) 12 -- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) 19 -- Audre Lorde, Zami (1982) 26 -- John Wideman, Brothers and Keepers (1984) May 3 -- Summary Secondary texts for oral reports Jan. 11 -- No report 18 -- No report 25 -- William Wells Brown, Narrative (1847 or 1848 ed.) Feb. 1 -- No report 8 -- Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes (1868) 15 -- W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) 22 -- Ida B. Wells, Crusade for Justice (1970) Mar. 1 -- Mary Church Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World (1940) OR Ellen Tarry, The Third Door (1955) 8 -- No report 15 -- Angelo Herndon, Let Me Live (1937) 29 -- Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land (1965) Apr. 5 -- No report 12 -- Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name (1974) 19 -- Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water (1988) 26 -- Mamie Garvin Fields, Lemon Swamp and Other Places (1983) May 3 -- No report Bibliography: Andrews, William L., ed. African American Autobiography (Prentice-Hall, 1993). ---------. Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass (G.K. Hall, 1991). ---------. To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro- American Autobiography, 1760-1865 (U of Illinois P, 1986). Baker, Houston A. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature (U of Chicago P, 1984). Blassingame, John. The Slave Community (Oxford UP, 1972). Braxton, Joanne M. Black Women Writing Autobiography: Tradition within a Tradition (Temple UP, 1989). Butterfield, Stephen. Black Autobiography in America (U of Massachusetts P, 1974). Davis, Charles T. and Henry Louis Gates, eds. The Slave's Narrative (Oxford UP, 1985). Dudley, David L. My Father's Shadow: Intergenerational Conflict in African American Men's Autobiography (U of Pennsylvania P, 1991). Fabre, Michel. The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright (Morrow, 1973). --------. The World of Richard Wright (U of Mississippi P, 1985). Foster, Frances Smith. Witnessing Slavery (Wisconsin, 1994). --------. Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746-1892 (Indiana UP, 1993). Fredrickson, George M. The Black Image in the White Mind (Harper & Row, 1971). Gates, Henry Louis. Figures in Black (Oxford UP, 1987). -----. The Signifying Monkey (Oxford UP, 1988). Harlan, Louis R. Booker T. Washington. 2 vols. (Oxford UP, 1972, 1983). Hemenway, Robert. Zora Neale Hurston (U of Illinois P, 1977). Levine, Lawrence. Black Culture and Black Consciousness (Oxford UP, 1977. Lionnet, Francoise, Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self- Portraiture (Cornell UP, 1989). McDowell, Deborah and Arnold Rampersad, eds. Slavery and the Literary Imagination (Johns Hopkins UP, 1989). Martin, Waldo. The Mind of Frederick Douglass (U of North Carolina P, 1982). Meier, August. Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915 (U of Michigan P, 1966). Olney, James. Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical (Princeton UP, 1980). Sekora, John and Darwin T. Turner, eds. The Art of Slave Narrative (Essays in Literature, 1982). Smith, Sidonie. A Poetics of Women's Autobiography (Indiana UP, 1987). --------. Where I'm Bound (Greenwood, 1974). Stepto, Robert B. From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative (U of Illinois P, 1979). Sterling, Dorothy. We Are Your Sisters (Norton, 1984). Stone, Albert E. Autobiographical Occasions and Original Acts (U of Pennsylvania P, 1982). Trotman, C. James, ed. Richard Wright: Myths and Realities (Garland, 1988). Weintraub, Karl J. The Value of the Individual (U of Chicago P, 1978). Williamson, Joel. The Crucible of Race (Oxford UP, 1984). Yellin, Jean Fagan. Women and Sisters (Yale, 1990). -------------------------------------------------------------------- AMC 390 (Fall l994) University of Texas, Austin (Graduate Research Seminar) Century's End: Race and Gender at the Turn of the Century Professor Shelley Fisher Fishkin HRC, 5th Floor Seminar Room, Wednesdays, 9-l2 This course is designed as a preliminary exploration of the some of the ways in which issues of race and gender were constructed and construed in America from about l890 to about l9l4. We will read nine primary texts of literary and/or historical importance that are concerned, at their core, with one or more of these subjects, and will try to set the texts and the themes that are central to them in a larger cultural and historical context. The course is also designed to introduce graduate students to the archival resources of the University of Texas at Austin. We will meet in the Humanities Research Center, and will use HRC materials at each class meeting. In addition, students will be expected to find other primary sources that have bearing on the central concerns of the course in the manuscript, book, newspaper and periodical holdings of the HRC, the Perry-Castaneda Library and the Barker Texas History Center. Bibliographies to aid you in your research are attached. While the emphasis of the class is on using primary sources, the value of secondary sources in shaping our understanding of this period and its concerns should not be underestimated. The bibliographies include both primary and secondary materials. Weekly Requirements of the Course 1) A primary text is assigned for each week. These will include works by Anna Julia Cooper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mark Twain, Ida B. Wells, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Theodore Dreiser, Charles W. Chesnutt, W.E.B. DuBois, and James Weldon Johnson. 2) After you read the main text assigned for each class meeting, find some primary source (or sources) that illuminates, in some interesting way, issues of race and gender raised in the main text and explain your insight in class. (Issues of class and ethnicity as they intersect with gender and race should be addressed as well.) Turn in a paragraph that briefly states the kinds of "connections" you endeavored to make and what you came up with; give full citations (including library location) for each of the primary sources you discuss. (These notes will not be graded, but a record of their having been turned in will be kept.) One possible approach involves using materials by the writer in question other than those read for class. Another approach involves finding materials from the period that shed interesting light on the class text and the issues it raises. Either approach is fine. Be creative! Other Requirements l) Each student is required to be the "facilitator" of the class during one class meeting. The facilitator(s) for each week's meeting should do extra research on l)the popular and critical reception of the primary text at the time of its publication and subsequently, and 2) historical events and issues that impinge on or illuminate the text and its reception. Facilitators should A) be prepared to begin class with a fifteen-minute to twenty-minute oral report on these issues, and then B) generate discussion questions surrounding them. (Facilitators need not turn in "connection" paragraphs during the week of their presentations.) 2) Students are expected to write a 20-page research paper. This paper should frame a thesis regarding the construction of race and gender at the turn of the century, making use of primary sources and archival material. Note on Resources: The resources of the HRC will be used in class, and students are encouraged to explore HRC holdings in some depth. In addition to the literary manuscripts and archives and the book and periodical holdings on the fifth floor students should be aware of two other HRC collections housed on other floors and should feel free to explore them: l) the Photography Collection, and 2) the Theatre Arts Collection. The University of Texas's holdings in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century newspapers and periodicals are spread over the HRC, the PCL and the Barker Texas History Center. Only a small fraction of these holdings are reflected in the attached bibliographies. A veritable treasure trove of additional sources are housed in each of these libraries. PCL and Barker periodical holdings are generally listed in UTCAT online terminals; HRC periodical holdings are not. HRC periodicals are listed in the bound volumes of computer printouts kept on the table in the back of the HRC reading room. Copies of HRC periodical printouts are available in the reference room of PCL as well. (Caution: many newspaper and periodical runs held by UT are incomplete.If you are looking for a specific article, don't rely on the computer alone to let you know if you will be able to locate it in time to use it.) If periodicals will be central to your large research project, try to locate them early on in the semester. A number of newspapers periodicals that UT libraries do NOT have are available for longterm loan from the Center for Research Libraries. These loans, which take 2-4 weeks to be processed, are handled through InterLibrary Loan. Newspapers and periodicals available through CRL -- such as complete runs of the Baltimore Afro-American -- are listed in UTCAT. Be sure to order such periodicals early in the semester if you plan to use them. Also, if you do place an order through CRL, please let the class know in case another student would like to use the paper or magazine as well. The Barker Texas History Center has invaluable resources that have bearing on the issues we will be dealing with in this course--including four African American newspapers from the turn-of-the-century (the Austin Weekly Bulletin, the Galveston City Times, the Galveston Tamborian, and the Pittsburg X-Ray), as well as many of the mainstream newspapers and periodicals of the time. Note on HRC Regulations Having class meetings in the HRC entails certain privileges and obligations. The good news is that HRC materials will be readily available to you throughout the semester, and will be brought to the classroom for each class. The bad news is that the rules of the HRC reading room apply to everything that happens on the fifth floor. This means: l) Absolutely NO food or drink of any kind allowed in the building. We will have a break in the middle of class when you can go out for coffee, if you need it--but don't even THINK about bringing it in past the guard. 2) You have to check your belongings at the door. Jackets, backpacks and purses may be left either on the ground floor or at the entrance to the fifth floor. Both areas are guarded. 3) Pencils and yellow paper will be provided to you free of charge on the fifth floor. No pens allowed. No notebooks allowed. You are allowed to write on your own yellow writing tablets or loose yellow sheets. If you want to keep your notes for the class in a notebook, get a looseleaf notebook and take a few pages in with you for each class. These note pages will be stamped at the front desk on the fifth floor. (The looseleaf notebook itself is not allowed inside.) If you want to share with the class a xerox of material to which you refer in your "connections" paragraph, have that stamped at the desk as well. You will be allowed to bring your paperback copy of the primary text for each class into the seminar room--but no other books will be allowed. Class Schedule August 3lst Introductory Session September 7th Anna Julia Cooper primary text: A Voice From The South (l892) September Sept.l4th Charlotte Perkins Gilman primary text: The Yellow Wallpaper (l892) September 2lst Mark Twain primary text: Pudd'nhead Wilson (l894) September 28th Ida B. Wells primary text: A Red Record (l895) October 5th Paul Laurence Dunbar primary text: Lyrics of Lowly Life (l896) October l2th Charles W. Chesnutt primary text: The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories (l899) October 26th Theodore Dreiser primary text: Sister Carrie (l900) November 2nd W.E.B. Du Bois primary text: The Souls of Black Folk (l903) November 9th James Weldon Johnson primary text: Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (l9l2) November 16th consultations on student projects Novembeer 23rd consultations on student projects November 30th consultations on student projects December 7th REPORTS Decemer 8th REPORTS potluck supper at professor's home --------------------------------------------------------------- Heather Hathaway Dept. of English Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 The Art and Politics of Black Women Writers (taught at Trinity College, Fall 1993) Objectives: This course is designed to provide students with an historical overview of Black womens writing in the United States. Beginning with slave narratives, we explore the degrees to which Black womens literature in the 19th century was inherently political both in terms of its motivations and public reception. As we progress through the 20th century, our goal is to examine how the relationship between the aesthetic and the political continues to be expressed in the texts, and to consider this against the backdrop of social constructions of race and gender. This is an advanced course which requires from the students some knowledge of both African American literary history as well as literary theory. Sept. 2 Introduction Sept. 7, 9 19th Century Women's Narratives--Enslaved and Free Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) Sept. 14, 16 Harriet Wilson, Our Nig (1859) Sept. 21, 23 The Woman's Era Pauline Hopkins, Contending Forces (1900) Sept. 28, 30 Race, Class and Gender During the Harlem Renaissance Selected short stories from Marcy Knopf, ed. The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem Renaissance Stories by Women (1993) Oct. 5, 7 The Urban(e) Outsider Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) Reading Week Oct. 11-15 Oct. 19, 21 A Radical Revision of the WomenFolk Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) Oct. 26, 28 The Fifties: Two More Views Ann Petry, The Narrows (1953) Nov. 2, 4 Paule Marshall, Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959) **Nov. 4 First Paper Due in Class. 5-7 pages. Topics TBA. Nov. 9, 11 The Recent "Renaissance" Toni Morrison, Sula (1973) Nov. 16, 18 Alice Walker, Meridian (1976) Nov. 23 Catch up and review Nov. 25 Thanksgiving Nov. 30, Dec. 2 Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place (1982) Dec. 7, 9 To be or not to be? Terry McMillan, Waiting to Exhale **Dec. 9 Final Paper due in class. 10-12 pages. Topics TBA. --------------------------------------------------------------- Heather Hathaway Department of English Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 BLACK WOMENS NARRATIVE FROM SLAVERY TO THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE (taught at Harvard University, History and Literature Tutorial, 1989) Objectives: This course, heavily dependent upon Hazel Carby's Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist (Oxford, 1987), is intended to explore the parameters of the literature produced by Black women in the Americas between slavery and the Harlem Renaissance. The goal is to provide students with knowledge of the historical and social roots of Black womens writing during the 19th and early 20th century in order that they may better contextualize more recent and popular works. Throughout the class, the uses of fiction to borrow Pauline Hokpins phrase, frames our discussion of the literature. Feb. 1 Female Slave Narratives Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) Feb. 8 Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl (1861) [Yellin edition] Hazel Carby, chps. 1 and 2 from Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist ("Woman's Era: Rethinking Black Feminist Theory" and "Slave and Mistress: Ideologies of Womanhood Under Slavery") Feb.15 Narratives of Free Black Women Nancy Prince, A Black Woman's Odyssey Through Russia and Jamaica: The Narrative of Nancy Prince (1850) Feb.22 Harriet Wilson, Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859) Carby, ch. 3 ("'Hear My Voice, Ye Careless Daughters': Narratives of Slave and Free Women Before Emancipation") Feb. 29 Politics and Power Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, "Woman's Political Future" Carby, ch. 4 ("Of Lasting Service for the Race") March 1 Lynching and Sexuality: The Colonization of the Body Ida B. Wells, selected readings. March 8 Fiction as a Tool of Social Protest Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Iola LeRoy Carby, ch. 4 and 5 ("Of Lasting Service for the Race: The Work of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper" and "'In the Quiet, Undisputed Dignity of My Womanhood': Black Feminist Thought After Emancipation") March 15 Pauline Hopkins, Contending Forces Carby, chps. 6 and 7 ("'Of What Use is Fiction?': Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins" and "'All the Fire and Romance': The Magazine Fiction of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins" March 22 Into the Twentieth Century: Sexual and Racial "Others" Nella Larsen, Quicksand Apr. 5 Larsen, Passing Apr. 12 The Harlem Renaissance: Conservative Views of Race and Gender--The Elite Jessie Fauset, Chinaberry Tree Apr. 19 The Harlem Renaissance: Alternative Views of Race and Gender--The Folk Zora Neal Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God Apr.26 Conclusion Carby, ch. 8 ("The Quicksands of Representation: Rethinking Black Cultural Politics") FINAL PAPER DUE Supplemental Texts to read throughout the course: Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class (1981); Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (1984). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heather Hathaway Dept. of English, Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 Interdisciplinary, lower-division course in African American Studies 2 semesters Introduction to African American Studies This course is designed both to introduce students to key issues, themes, and methods in African American Studies as well as to pique interest in an effort to encourage further study of the discipline; thus, the course is comprised of important texts, but also of those which have proven to have "high appeal" in the past. I have presumed very little knowledge on the students' parts of either African American or ethnic studies more generally. Each week is focussed around a literary text through which we explore a central issue in interdisciplinary fashion. For example, during the unit on slavery we study a variety of slave narratives, and use these texts as entry points into a discussion of the historical period and cultural moment which informed their creation.I have selected both traditional and non-traditional texts, but have attempted to provide the students with a solid foundation in those which they might be most commonly expected to know following an introductory course in African American studies. Unit 1: African Folk Roots and The Oral Tradition Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes, The Book of Negro Folklore Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness Harold Scheub, The African Storyteller Roger D. Abrahams, ed., Afro-American Folktales Melville Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past This unit is designed with three primary goals in mind: 1) to familiarize the students with African culture and folktale prior to the arrival of slaves in the United States; 2) to examine the transformation of these cultural forms in the American context into uniquely and innovatively African American expressions; and 3) to unseat traditional notions of orality as less valid than written literature. This will provide foundational knowledge for subsequent examinations of poetry, music, and contemporary literature. Unit 2: Images of Slavery and Freedom Two of the following narratives: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of an American Slave Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of . . . Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Wilson, Our Nig Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave This unit will examine both the institution of slavery from a historical perspective through lectures, and will illustrate the construction of slave narratives as abolitionist material as well as a distinct literary genre. It will also, through contrasts of the selections from group one and group two, assess the nature of freedom for "free" Blacks during slavery. The particular selection of the narratives will depend upon student preparation. Unit 3: Post-Emancipation Turning Points: Race Ideologies Defined Accomodationism: Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery The Talented Tenth: W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk The Women's View: Ida B. Wells, selected essays C.Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915 This period represents a turning point in African American intellectual history as Washington and Du Bois vied for the position of "race leader"--each espousing rather different beliefs about the means to equality--while Ida B. Wells, among others, emphasized the relationship between gender, sexuality, and lynching as an increasingly institutionalized system of oppression. The primary texts will illustrate the most salient aspects of each figure's philosophy, while the secondary material will provide historical context for the period so that students may understand clearly the cultural moments out of which these varying philosophies were produced. Unit 4: The Great Migration and the Development of Black Urban Centers Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Sport of the Gods Edwin S. Redkey, Black Exodus Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto 1890-1930 Allen Spears, Black Chicago 1890-1920 This unit focusses on the forces that pushed Blacks out of the South following Reconstruction and into Northern urban environments. The contrast of Osofsky and Spears is intended to demystify "the ghetto" for largely unfamiliar students by showing differences between Chicago and Harlem both during the period and, by extension, in the present. Dunbar's novel will be used 1) to address the issue of migration from a cultural perspective, 2) as an important document of literary naturalism in African American letters which is related to Zola, Dreiser, and Crane, for example, and 3) to serve as a precursor to the literature produced during the Harlem Renaissance. Unit 5: The Harlem Renaissance James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex- Coloured Man Music Session: Ragtime and Early Jazz Alain Locke, The New Negro Slide Presentations on art work of Aaron Douglas, Augusta Savage, William H. Johnson, Meta Fuller Langston Hughes, poetry Music Session: Blues forms Nathan Huggins, The Harlem Renaissance David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue This unit explores the complexity of the Harlem Renaissance as a cultural moment by considering it from literary, musical, historical, and artistic perspectives. The New Negro contains works by most of the major authors involved in the Renaissance and will serve both as the "bible" of the movement, and as the introductory text to a number of writers. The music and art sessions will demonstrate the pervasiveness of the "Renaissance philosophy," as well as will illustrate the individual and differing responses of each artist to the period. Finally, the motivations and legacies of the explosion in artistic activity will be addressed through use of the historical texts as both secondary and primary sources. Unit 6: Love and Hate Zora Neal Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God Richard Wright, Native Son June Jordan, "Toward a Black Balancing of Love and Hatred" in Civil Wars Ralph Ellision, Invisible Man James Baldwin, "Many Thousands Gone" Richard Wright, "Blueprint for Negro Writing" Ellison, "Richard Wright's Blues" and "The World and the Jug," from Shadow and Act This literary unit is designed to reveal to students the range of responses to what does or should constitute a "black aesthetic in the United States, and to acquaint them with the dialogue surrounding the issue as it has been expressed at different historical moments by prominent African American authors. Each writer espouses distinct beliefs ranging from protest (Wright) to affirmation (Hurston) to transcendance (Ellison). Unit 7: Civil Rights Alice Walker, Meridian Martin Luther King, Jr., The Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcom X (with Alex Haley), The Autobiography of Malcolm X Film: Selections from "Eyes on the Prize" This unit explores the Civil Rights era in fiction and documentary history, again in an effort to demonstrate the complexity of the moment and the range of responses by African American intellectuals and artists. Walker's novel, although difficult for many students, is particularly useful in its examination of the relationship between art and politics, as well as of political ideologies, during the period. Unit 8: Black Male Mythologies Wideman, Brothers and Keepers Sociological studies and popular culture articles on separate school systems for Black male youth Music session: Rap This unit is designed to cause a critical evaluation of the mythologies promoted about black males in recent years, primarily in order to disrupt stereotypes produced by media images. Black men are generally depicted as at a crisis point--a point which instills irrational fear and promotes racsome other theoretical points in class. So what we will do here is read these texts by using them to interrogate one another and measure them against everything else that we know from our experience, our traditions, and our formal education. One purpose of this activity, though not the only one we will derive, is to come to some ability to describe how these two text-making practices, the most central such activities of our snts from the 18th and 19th centuries: a manumission certificate, a certificate of ownership of an infant born to a slave in New York, a bill of sale for a slave, a "pass" for a slave to travel away from home, a claim for fees for having cuaght a runaway slave, and a notice of bond against a free woman of color who had been arrested for "insulting a white man." We discussed, among other matters, the implications of the fact that each of these documents was a printed, i.e., mass-produced form with blanks to fill out. The quotidian nature of these pre-printed forms gave us a real sense of the institutionalization of slavery as a system of control. We spent some time with the implicit narratives in each of the documents. That is, the forms themselves were not narratival but once names, ages, dates, locations, and imputed actions were filled in, then stories took shape. We talked about how memory, history, law, and fiction were all narrative systems, all text-producing enterprises. We noted how these documents contibuted to each of those genres. Beyond the notion of intertextuality discussed in the notes to the syllabus, we also worked on understanding such matters as the social construction of reality, privieged narration, subject position in the text, and the ground of definition as they might apply to texts of law and African-American experience. These were ongoing discussions and re-emerged with each new text. I also distributed to each member of the class a copy of the Constitution, of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and its 1793 precursor, and of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Missouri Compromise. These were referred to in our discussions of Beloved, Blake, Bell, and Williams. In practice, the course worked as a "discussion" by/with/of Delany contra Morrison, then Delany contra Griggs, with both of these informing and being informed by the documents and all eventually passed through Bell and Williams. ASSIGNMENTS 1. After identifying relevant chapters in Williams and having read both Delany and Morrison, the class was asked to consider the fiction through the lens of one or more of the issues raised by Williams about African Americans under the law. I expected that the discussions would reflect the influence of our class discussions and exerience with reserve readings and documents. I also asked that the respondent also consider that which she felt remained untouched in the books by her discussion that was necessary to account for the book's impact on her. As an option, a student could address the question of how writers take similar historical moments and conditions and create different texts. Delany and Morrison are wonderful examples of this. Students were to take into account as many variables as they could identify and then consider what, after all, the texts had in common other than their historical roots. To end, the student choosing this option was asked to consider how the texts by Delany and Morrison changed when read through Williams. 2. At mid-semester, students were asked to choose one or more of the documents we had seen and develop a fiction that engaged some of the issues we had been discussing: subject position, objectification, the function of memory, inhumanity of slavery as a system rather than as an collection of acts, law as a story, literacy and the importance of story-telling, the inhumanity of whites, color discrimination within the race, revolution and resistance, escape, violence as a response to slavery, violence as a part of slavery. 3. At semester's end, students responded by writing for two hours in the seminar room. For the first hour they were to respond to passages from Houston Baker (Singers of Daybreak 1974) and Toni Morrison (Playing in the Dark 1992): Baker: "In the black narrative, the judgement rendered by the white world manifests itself in a pattern of extralegality. Moving from an initially limitedposition, the black protagonist often finds himself outside the dictates of a society that attempts to confine him, and his expanding consciousness leads to the realization that it is not humanism or moral righteousness that brings about the adverse rulings of the white world, but a quest for personal power and a desire for psychological stability purchased at the price of a distorted image of the black American." (16) Morrison: "Black slavery enriched the country's creative possibilities. For in that construction of blackness and enslavement could be found not only the not-free but also, with the dramatic polarity created by skin color, the not-me. The result was a playground of the imagination. What rose up out of collective needs to allay internal fears and to rationalize external exploitation was an American Africanism--a fabricated brew of darkness, otherness, alarm, and desire that is uniquely American." (38) These passages reflected on the course generally, but specifically raised issues conmnected to the Griggs novel. For the second hour the students read a document new to them, an 1837 letter from a Mr. George Farnham complaining to his local magistrate that a band of slave patrollers had beaten one of his slaves. In the 3 1/2 page letter, Parnham describes the beating and reveals much about the relationships between his family and their slaves. But finally he comes to his point: "So, please to issue a writ against [the patrol] [sic] I suppose that it would be proper to say that these men came forcibly upon my preme[]ses and injured my negro, by means of which I lost his services for a period of time. The facts of the case are that I am not only losing his services at this time, but am employing a physician for him." [Schomburg Slavery Collection MS Slavery P7 Sc Micro R 1520 #77 1837 July 25] The instructions to the students were: "Read the accompanying document and write about this course for one hour." This passage, rich in voice, focused attention on the question ofsubject position in law and narrative. Slaves could not bring suit or charges in any court; most were illiterate by law. Then whose story is this? Can property, which by law could own nothing, own its own story? Can that which was contracted for, that which was defined, ever give up the right to contract, the right to define, once it is seized?

This page was prepared by Audrey Mickahail at the Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies (CEPACS), Georgetown University.


CEPACS
Randy Bass, Director