Connections 375: The Harlem Renaissance Fall 2007 Professor Hans Ostrom, Department of English
Welcome to Connections 375. Here is some basic information:
My Office: Wyatt 336. Office-Hours for Fall 2007: Tuesdays, 9-11, and by appointment, of course.
English Department’s telephone: x3235 (messages); my telephone: x3434 (voice mail). Electronic mail: ostrom@ups.edu. The English Department’s mailboxes are located in the room next to the Philosophy Department’s main office on the third floor of Wyatt Hall.
Home page: www.ups.edu/faculty/ostrom/. A printable copy of this syllabus will be posted on the home page.
The University’s Equal Opportunity Statement
The University of Puget Sound does not discriminate in education or employment on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, marital or familial status, sexual orientation, Vietnam-era veteran status, gender identity, or any other basis prohibited by local, state, or federal laws. This policy complies with the spirit and the letter of applicable federal, state and local laws, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Questions about the policy may be referred to the University's Director of Human Resources and Affirmative Action (253-879-3116) or the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.
Harlem
Harlem is a part of New York City, a metropolis built on top of an island that Europeans purchased from the people who were there first. After the purchase, this part of Manhattan was resettled by colonists from the Netherlands and Germany. (Harlem takes its name from Haarlem, a Dutch city.) In the early part of the 20th century, African Americans and West Indians resettled in Harlem. Shortly thereafter, a cultural transformation occurred. Its influence is still felt, every day, in the United States and worldwide. In this course, we will study the transformation, focusing on the literary part of it, with the understanding that the literature cannot be studied properly without reference to the broader cultural context; therefore, we’ll listen to music, look at art, glance at politics, examine debates about aesthetics, and trace the connections among all of these subjects.
If we were to locate Harlem geographically, both today and in 1920, we might say that it lies north of 110th Street (Central Park North), east of St. Nicholas Avenue and the Hudson River, west of the Harlem River and the Bronx, and south of 156th Street.
Locating Harlem in our minds—our "consciousness," if you will—is a much more complicated task, one that the course is designed to help accomplish. Studying how such a small urban district can have such a big impact on a whole society is one purpose of the course.
Some Aims of the Course
This course features the reading and analysis of, the writing and talking about, literature. The University Bulletin indicates that a Connections course should “develop an understanding of the interrelationship of fields of knowledge.” Therefore, the course also examines connections between literature and, in alphabetical order, aesthetics, art, ethnicity, gender, history, music, politics, religion, and sexuality. However, the Harlem Renaissance itself forged connections and revealed conflicts between these elements of culture.
We will examine our own preconceived notions of Harlem, African-American literature, the Blues, jazz, the 1920s in the U.S., and so on. We’ll be alert to how these notions change, or not, and why. That is, we’ll look at our own positions, vis-à-vis the Harlem Renaissance and topics related to it. Such topics include concepts of “race” (ethnicity); characteristics and effects of racism; the purposes of art; intersections of ethnicity and gender, ethnicity and social-class, ethnicity and nation; the African diaspora; slavery, the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and beyond; beliefs people hold (and challenge) with regard to how identity is “essential” or “constructed” or . . . what?; how actual participants in the Harlem Renaissance disagreed with each other, formed unexpected alliances, fulfilled plans, and disrupted plans; concepts of “The Talented Tenth,” “The New Negro,” “double-consciousness, and “exoticism”; positions represented by iconic figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Sojourner Truth, and Marcus Garvey; how Black and White Americans interacted (or not) in the Harlem Renaissance, including the complex case of Carl Van Vechten and an infamous novel with an infamous title. Because we live in the U.S., “race” is always part of current events, so if events arise locally, regionally, or nationally that seem to resonate with the Harlem Renaissance, we will take the opportunity to discuss them, looking through the lenses of the course. I have yet to teach this course without something obviously pertinent happening on campus, in the region, or in the nation.
One assumption with which I begin, with which the course begins, is that many issues, values, and conflicts in the Harlem Renaissance and its literature persist, so that as we study Harlem then we will also be studying the United States and the world and even this campus now. Only a very few literary periods and groups of writers have received as much widespread renewed attention as the Harlem Renaissance and its writers. Works of these writers have been republished at an astonishing rate in recent years; moreover, the renewed attention has come not just from scholars but also from the public at large. This literary era, the core of which belongs to the years 1920-1930, may not be unique, but it is distinctive in powerful, interesting, and enduring ways. Therefore, another aim of the course is to develop an understanding of this distinctiveness. The Harlem Renaissance is also a maddeningly complicated era, a kind of puzzle that satisfies and frustrates simultaneously. One additional aim is to balance the satisfaction and frustration as we honor the complexity.
The Etiquette and Atmosphere of the Course
Here are some guidelines to which all of us should try to adhere. None of them will be surprising or difficult. In fact, I hope they’ll seem familiar, even obvious, but sometimes it’s good to reaffirm the familiar. All are aimed at creating a productive, workable environment.
Briefly, About the Professor
I’ve taught here for quite some time. My repertoire includes courses in literature, writing & rhetoric, and creative writing. I’ve published poetry, fiction, criticism, and scholarship. The works that bear most directly on teaching the Harlem Renaissance include Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction (1993); A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia (2002); and The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, 5 volumes, edited with J. David Macey (2005).
Books Required for the Course
David Levering Lewis, editor. The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. New York: Penguin, 1994. Paperback. Includes poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction by the major and minor figures of the HR.
Wallace Thurman, editor. FIRE!! [facsimile reprint of a literary magazine published in Harlem in 1926]. 48 pages. Paperback.
Langston Hughes. The Ways of White Folks. New York: Vintage, 1990. Paperback. A collection of short stories first published in 1934.
Jessie Redmon Fauset. Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. Paperback. The book was first published in 1929.
Jean Toomer. Cane. New York: Norton Critical Edition, 1988. Paperback. A novel, perhaps; it was first published in 1923.
Rudolph Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. Paperback.
George Schuyler, Black No More. New York: Modern Library, 1999. Paperback.
In addition, we will study images of visual art produced by Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones, Palmer Hayden, Romare Bearden, Sargent Johnson, and William H. Johnson. We will listen to blues and jazz from the period by such artists as Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson (who composed the song of the 1920s, “Charleston”), Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Fats Waller. We will listen to spoken-word interpretations of poetry, as performed by Alfre Woodard, Ice T, Debbie Allen, Branford Marsalis, and others. We also interpret such art-forms as Hip Hop music “backwards,” looking for influences and sources that may reside in the Harlem Renaissance and well beyond (much earlier). We will also consider dance, looking (for example) at Youtube footage of the lindy hop, as performed by African American dancers, while reading commentary from the period on the dance. We will consider how attitudes toward dance contributed to African Americans being perceived as “exotic.”
Elements on Which Your Final Grade Will Be Based
Participation. This includes attendance; productive contribution to discussions and group-work; and some informal writing—specifically, in-class responses to/analyses of music, videos about visual art and music, and videos about history and dance; etc.): about 20 per cent, total.
Attendance guidelines: Each absence after the third one will start to erode your final grade. Each late arrival after the second one counts as an absence.
Two essays: about 50 per cent
Two tests: about 20 per cent, total
One presentation (a brief biography of a notable person or discussion of an institution associated with the Harlem Renaissance): about 10 per cent.
A couple more items of note: 1) We will work on drafts of essays in class. Please do not think of this work as optional; take due-dates for drafts seriously. 2) I regard electronic mail as useful for answering brief questions about assignments or due dates. In-person discussions during office hours or over coffee in Diversions or the Crystal Palace (a.k.a. Oppenheimer Café) seem better for more complicated questions about essay-drafts, works we’re reading, and so on. Please do not send me written work electronically unless I ask you to do so; thank you.
Schedule of Class Meetings, Assignments, Topics
Wednesday, September 5: To help you decide whether you want to remain in the course, we will look at the syllabus carefully. An overview of the course. Your experience with or notions about Harlem. Music. Distribute photocopy from The Harlem Renaissance, by Steven Watson.
Friday, September 7: For today, please read the photocopied section from Watson’s book. Also read, in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (hereafter known as HRR), the "Chronology," as well as essays by Du Bois (3-6), Woodson (6-10), Locke (46-52), and Rogers (52-58). Also read Cane, 1-21. Please always read the brief biographies (in the back of HRR) of writers assigned. Music.
Monday, September 10: Read Cane through page 80 (the end of "Bona and Paul"). Also, in HRR, read "The Negro Artist and Modern Art," by Romare Bearden, 138-141. A discussion of literary genres. To what genre(s) does Cane belong? What works does it remind you of? To what extent is Cane a "difficult" book and/or belong to a "difficult" genre? We’ll begin a discussion of the Harlem Renaissance and Modernism.
Wednesday, September 12: In HRR, read the selections from The Big Sea, by Langston Hughes, 77-91, as well as "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (91-95). Also please read "The Negro-Art Hokum," by George Schuyler," 96-99, and "Criteria of Negro Art," by W.E.B. Du Bois, 100-105. What are the implicit and explicit debates about "Negro Art"? What are key areas of dispute? What purposes of art emerge in these debates? What do you think art should "do"—for whom and why?
Friday, September 15: For today, please finish reading Cane and, in the critical section, please read the essays by Bontemps, McKeever, and Reilly, and select mains points from each essay you’d like to discuss.
Monday, September 17: In HRR, read all the poems by Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Distribute photocopy of essay about Carl Van Vechten’s novel, Nigger Heaven.
Wednesday, September 19: Continue discussion of poems by Hughes and Cullen.
Friday, September 21: For today, read the essay about Van Vechten. In HRR, read "Critiques of Carl Van Vechten’s Nigger Heaven" by Du Bois and Johnson (106-109), "The Caucasian Storms Harlem," by Rudolph Fisher (110-117), and "The Harlem Intelligentsia” and "Harlem Runs Wild" by McKay. First essay assigned, discussed.
Monday, September 24: For today, in HRR, read the poetry by Bennett, Bontemps, Brown, Fauset, and the three Johnsons (Fenton, Georgia Douglas, and James Weldon). Remember to read the biographical notes on each author.
Wednesday, September 26: Continue discussing poems assigned for September 21 and 24. First essay assigned and discussed.
Friday, September 28: For today, with someone else in class, look at FIRE!! Examine it as an artifact—its shape, its layout, its alleged purpose then, how you respond to it as an object now, the messages its physical presence sends, the circumstances of its creation, etc. Look at all of the visual art in FIRE!! and make some notes about each image. Also, read the four-page insert that came with the facsimile reprint.
Monday, October 1: For today, please read the works in FIRE!! on pages 1-23.
Wednesday, October 3: For today, in FIRE!!, please read “Wedding Day, A Story”; “Smoke, Lillies, and Jade”; “Sweat”; and “Fire Burns.” Music.
Friday, October 5: In HRR, read the selection from Walter White’s The Fire in the Flint, 351-362. In The Ways of White Folks, read "Cora Unashamed," "Slave on the Block," "Home," "Passing," "A Good Job Gone,” and “Poor Little Black Fellow.”
Monday, October 8. Finish discussing short stories from Friday. Review for test. Music.
Wednesday, October 10. First test.
Friday, October 12. . For today, read, in The Ways of White Folks, "The Blues I’m Playing,” “Berry,” and “Father and Son.”
Monday, October 15. For today, read the introduction to Plum Bun and pages 11-86 of the novel.
Wednesday, October 17: For today, please read Plum Bun, pp. 86-119. List of Harlem-Renaissance notables distributed. Each of you will choose one notable and prepare a brief oral presentation on her or him. Presentations discussed: what will be expected?
Friday, October 19: Draft of essay due. (Keep reading Plum Bun.)
Wednesday, October 24. Essay due. Images of visual art of the Harlem Renaissance. (Keep reading Plum Bun.)
Friday, October 26: For today, please finish reading Plum Bun and pick out chapters, episodes, and scenes you want to discuss on pages 119 through the end. Sign up for your presentation.
Monday, October 29: Excerpts from videotape on African American dance.
Wednesday, October 31: For today, in HRR, read "The Task of Negro Womanhood" by Elsie Johnson McDougald, 68-76, and “Le Bourgeois Noire,” by E. Franklin Frazier. Also read the first four chapters of Black No More, by George S. Schuyler.
Friday, November 2: For today, read through Chapter Nine of Black No More.
Monday, November 5: For today, finish reading Black No More.
Wednesday, November 7: Three presentations.
Friday, November 9. For today, please read The Conjure-Man Dies, through Chapter Seven. Read the book as a detective novel, certainly, but also read it through the lens of having studied the Harlem Renaissance.
Monday, November 12: Three presentations.
Wednesday, November 14: Please read The Conjure-Man Dies, through Chapter Sixteen.
Friday, November 16: Three presentations.
Monday, November 19. Second essay assigned and discussed. Review for test.
Monday, November 26. Three presentations.
Wednesday, November 28: For today, please finish reading The Conjure-Man Dies.
Friday, November 30: Three presentations.
Monday, December 3: Three presentations.
Wednesday, December 5: Three presentations.
Friday, December 7: Draft of second essay due.
Monday, December 10. Test.
Wednesday, December 12. Food. Last day of classes.
Monday, December 17: Essay due at my office by 4:00 p.m.