English 482: Topics In African American Literature                                Spring 2008

Professor Hans Ostrom                                                                   MWF 12:00 Wyatt 305

My Office: Wyatt 336. Office-Hours for Spring 2008: Tuesdays, 10:00-12:30, 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 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.

Aims of the Course

This course will focus on African American literature from the 20th century but also take us into the 21st.  We will study works by writers from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, from the mid-twentieth century, from the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and from the period that saw Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and others achieve international acclaim. 

 

Readings will include poetry by Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Anne Spencer, Angelina Weld Grimké, Countee Cullen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Bob Kaufman, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, and Rita Dove.  We will study the following novels: The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, by James Weldon Johnson; Nella Larsen’s Quicksand; Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin; Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison; and Kindred, by Octavia Butler.  The course will also cover short fiction and essays from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2nd edition), and we will examine major critical perspectives on African American literature.

 

The array of topics and themes includes double-consciousness, passing, white privilege, protest, vernacular traditions, realism, race and racism, feminism and Black feminism, surrealism, science fiction, sexuality, social-class, and gender. The course will trace continuities connecting James Weldon Johnson’s novel (1912), the poetry of Natasha Trethewey (winner of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, 2007), Octavia Butler’s last novel (2007), and the literature published in the intervening years. Requirements of the course are commensurate with a senior-level seminar. Our aims include the following: to engage critically with each of the works, to study contexts and cultural moments in which the writers produced the works and lived, and to achieve a rigorous overview of 20th century African American literature.

 

A list of topics and critical terms related to African American literature appears after the schedule.  This list may provide you with more detail about how the course will approach the literature.

 

Briefly, About the Professor

 

Sometimes students want to know a bit about the professor, especially in connection with the course.  So here is a bit in a paragraph: I’ve taught at Puget Sound for quite some time. As an amateur, I’ve been reading African American literature since I was in high school, and two of my favorite writers, not just in African American literature but in general, are Langston Hughes and James Baldwin.  As a professional, I’ve published Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction and A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia.  I am the co-editor of The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, 5 volumes (Greenwood Press, 2005).  At Puget Sound I teach the first-year seminar in writing and rhetoric, Introduction to English Studies, creative writing, Connections 375: The Harlem Renaissance, and a variety of other courses. With Professor William Haltom, I founded the African American Studies program here, many moons ago. Welcome to English 482.

The Etiquette and Atmosphere of the Course

Here are some guidelines to which all of us should 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.                                                                                                      

  1.  Please do attend class unless you are ill or otherwise indisposed, and please do arrive on time.  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. 
  2. To some degree, a college classroom has become an old fashioned, counter-cultural space that asks us to lengthen our attention-spans when the culture at large seeks to shorten them.  Please do listen while others are talking. Although conversations on the side are usually not intended to be rude or disruptive, they can have that effect. Respect each other and yourselves. Before class begins, turn off the electronic devices. If you use a lap-top computer in class, please use it only to take notes, not to get on the Internet or otherwise distract yourself and others. Please do not habitually get up and leave class.  I realize that, every so often, one needs to leave class for a few minutes.  But more than every so often is not appropriate. Please do your best. The more each of us contributes to the course, the more each of us will get out of it. Please do not plagiarize.
  3. Please turn in work and complete reading-assignments on time. But also please ask me to clarify assignments and guidelines if they are unclear, and please let me know if an illness or an emergency has prevented you from completing your work on time.
  4. Please do acquire the books required for the course, read them according to the syllabus, and bring them to class on the appropriate days. Acquire the editions I’ve ordered through the bookstore, even if you do not buy them at the bookstore. 
  5. Please don’t eat in class (every professor has his or her pet-peeves); a cup of coffee (for example) is fine, however.

Required Books

Please acquire the books—in the editions that were ordered through the bookstore, even if you don’t acquire them from the bookstore; we need, literally, to be on the same page.

 

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., et alia, editors, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.  New York: Norton:, 2004.  Second Edition.  Please try to acquire a copy that includes the compact disks.

 

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room.  New York: Delta, 2000.

 

Octavia Butler, Fledgling. New York: Grand Central Books, 2007.

 

Toni Morrison. Song of Solomon. New York: Plume, 1987.  Note: Please acquire this Plume edition.

 

Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard. New York: Mariner Books, 2007.

 

Elements on Which Your Grade Will Be Based

 

Participation: 20 per cent.  Please see “Etiquette and Atmosphere of the Course” above and the schedule below for more details about what the course expects from you.

 

Two Tests: 20 per cent (total).

 

One critical-analysis essay: 20 per cent.

 

One critical-analysis essay that includes research: 25 per cent

 

A presentation, with one other person, concerning a work in the vernacular tradition: blues, spirituals, gospel, or folklore, from our Norton anthology: 10 per cent.   At least one person in the pair should have access to an Ipod, and at least one person in the pair should have acquired the disks that accompany the second edition of the anthology. Of course, everyone in the class will have acquired the anthology itself.

 

On your own, or with classmates, view the three following films, which you may borrow from the UPS library: Native Son, directed by Jerrold Freedman, based on Richard Wright’s novel; The Color Purple, directed by Steven Spielberg, based on Alice Walker’s novel; and Do The Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee.  Take notes after you view each film, and come to class in May prepared to discuss the films: 5 per cent. In other words, view the films in January, February, March, and/or April.

 

Schedule of Meetings, Assignments, Reading, and Tasks

 

Part One: From The Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Era

 

January 23, Wednesday. Overview of the course, and an overview of historical and literary chronologies.  Please read the syllabus to see if you have any questions, and you may wish to re-read it after class to help you determine if you want to remain in the class.

 

January 25, Friday.  Going back in time, briefly.  In the Norton, please read the introduction to “The Literature of Slavery and Freedom 1746-1865,” George Moses Horton’s poem, “On Hearing of the Intention of a Gentleman to Purchase the Poet’s Freedom,” 242. Please read the biographical note on James Weldon Johnson (JWJ), 791-793, and read “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” sometimes referred to as the African American national anthem. Please read the first chapter of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, in the anthology, and identify passages you want to discuss.

 

January 28.  Monday.  For today, please finish reading JWJ’s novel in the anthology.  Choose points throughout the plot and passages in each chapter you want to discuss.  Make a brief list.  Also, consider problems and issues (personal, social, ethnical, political, and philosophical) the novel identifies.

 

January 30, Wednesday. For today, please read, in the anthology, the introduction to “Harlem Renaissance 1919-1940,” 953-961.  Please read the biographical notes for Angelina Weld Grimké and Anne Spencer, and read the poems by these two writers.

 

February 1, Friday.  For today, in the anthology, please read the biographical notes for Claude McKay (1003-1005), Rudolph Fisher (1224), and Marita Bonner (1243).  Please read “If We Must Die,” “Africa,” “America,” “St. Isaac’s Church, Petrograd,” and Enslaved,” by McKay.  Please read “City of Refuge” and “The Caucasian Storms Harlem,” by Fisher.  Please read “On Being Young—a Woman—and Colored,” by Bonner. 

 

February 4, Monday. For today, in the anthology, please read the biographical note for Langston Hughes (1288-1290), and read all of his poems in the anthology (1291-1310). Select poems and issued raised by poems that you especially want to consider.

 

February 6, Wednesday.  For today, please read the essays, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” by Langston Hughes, and “The Negro-Art Hokum,” by George Schuyler.  Summarize the points made in both essays and look for the not-so-obvious: points of agreement. For today, please also read the poems by Countee Cullen, as well as his biographical note.  It might be a good idea to start reading Quicksand for February 11.

 

February 8, Friday.  Today we will discuss poems by Hughes and Cullen that we have not yet discussed.

 

February 11, Monday.  For today, please read the biographical note for Nella Larsen, and read her short novel in the anthology, Quicksand (1086-1167).  Compare and contrast the novel with James Weldon Johnson’s.  Identify passages and scenes you want to emphasize in class. How many of the three films have you seen?

 

February 13, Wednesday.  For today, list pertinent issues raised in the Harlem-Renaissance period.  Also, please read the introduction to “Realism, Modernism, 1940-1960,” 1355-1367.  Identify key points. Please read the biographical note on Melvin B. Tolson, whom Denzel Washington plays in a recent film.  Read Tolson’s poems, “An Ex-Judge at the Bar” and “Dark Symphony.”

 

February 15, Friday.  For today, please read the biographical note for Richard Wright, 1309-1402, and the selections from Black Boy, 1471-1486.  Please also read the biographical note for Ann Petry (1496) and her short story, “Like A Winding Sheet,” 1497-1503.

 

February 18, Monday.  For today, please read the biographical note on James Baldwin in the Norton anthology, and please read Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin, through page 84, and identify sections and passages you want to discuss.

 

February 20, Wednesday.  For today, please finish reading Giovanni’s Room and identify sections and passages you want to discuss.

 

February 22.  Friday.  For today, in the Norton anthology, please read “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” “Stranger in the Village,” and “Notes of a Native Son,” by James Baldwin.

 

February 25, Monday.  Essay assigned, discussed.  For today, please read “Going to Meet the Man,” by James Baldwin, the biographical note on Bob Kaufman, and the poems by Kaufman. 

 

February 27,  Wednesday.  For today, in the anthology, please read the biographical note on Gwendolyn Brooks, and the poems from 1623 to 1649. How many of the three films have you seen?

 

February 29, Friday.  For today, in the anthology, please read the introduction to “The Black Arts Era, 1960-1975,” and please read “Towards a Black Aesthetic,” by Hoyt Fuller, 1852-1858.  Review for test.

 

March 3, Monday.  Test.

 

Part Two: From the Black Arts Era Through 2007

 

March 5, Wednesday.  Rough draft of essay due in class.

 

March 7 Friday. For today, in the anthology, please read the biographical note for Etheridge Knight as well as his poems and the biographical note for Amiri Baraka and his poems from p. 1937 to 1946.

 

March 10, Monday. For today, please read the section from “The Black Aesthetic,” by Addison Gayle, Jr., in the anthology, and please read the poems by Sonia Sanchez and June Jordan.

 

March 12, Wednesday.  Essay due in class.  For today, in the anthology, please read the poems by Lucille Clifton.

 

March 14, Friday.  For today, please choose one poem by Robert Hayden (p. 1518-1533) and one poem by Margaret Walker (p. 1617-1621) that you would like to discuss, and bring the anthology to class.  Field trip.

 

March 24, Monday.  For today, please read the poems by Nikki Giovanni and Carolyn M. Rodgers in the anthology. How many of the three films have you seen?

 

March 26, Wednesday. For today, in the anthology, please read the biographical note for Toni Morrison.  Please read (in the Plume edition of the novel) the first three chapters (@ 90 pages) of Solomon’s Song, by Morrison, and identify scenes, passages, issues, and questions you want to discuss.

 

March 28, Friday. For today, please read through Chapter 7 of Solomon’s Song.

 

March 31, Monday.  For today, please finish reading Solomon’s Song. Presentation-options, and sign up for presentations.

 

April 2, Wednesday. For today, in the anthology, please read “Women,” “Outcast,” “On Stripping Bark From Myself,” “’Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning,’” “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” and “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker. 

 

April 4, Friday. Three presentations.

 

April 7, Monday. Three presentations. Second essay assigned, discussed.

 

April 9, Wednesday.  Two or three presentations.

 

April 11, Friday.  For today, please read the biographical note on Octavia Butler in the anthology and read the first 10 chapters of her novel, Fledgling. Identify passages, scenes, issues, and questions you want to discuss.

 

April 14, Monday.  For today, please finish reading Fledgling.

April 16, Wednesday.  For today, please read Native Guard, by Natasha Trethewey.  Sign up for conferences.

 

April 18. Friday. Continue discussing Native Guard. Review for test. Look ahead to May 2.

 

April 21, Monday. Sign up for conferences concerning your second paper.  Test.

 

April 23, Wednesday.  Conferences in Wyatt 336.

 

April 26, Friday.  Conferences in Wyatt 336.

 

April 29, Monday. Conferences in Wyatt 336

 

April 30. Wednesday. Conferences in Wyatt 336.

 

May 2, Friday.  Full-class discussion of the films Native Son, The Color Purple, and Do The Right Thing. At the beginning of class, I will appoint @ 5 discussion-leaders for each film.

 

May 5, Monday.  Overview.  Questions about the essay?

 

May 7, Wednesday. Essay due in class.

 

Finis.

 

 

Terms, Topics, Points of Reference, and Themes

 

 

Affirmative Action

Agency (with regard to interpretation of literature)

Appropriation

Backlash

Black Aesthetic

Black Power

Black Studies

Blues

Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Rock & Roll, Soul, Hip Hop, Rap

Brown v. Board of Education

Canon/Canonicity

Civil Rights Era

Color/Color Caste/”One-Drop Rule’

Deconstruction

Desegregation versus Integration

Dixiecrats

Dred Scott decision

Essentialism

Ethnicity

Exoticism

Feminism/Black Feminism

Formalism

Gay (etymology of)

Gaze (as in “the male gaze”)

Gender

Gospel

Homosexual/Homosexuality (etymology of)

Jim Crow

Little Rock

Marxism

Modernism

Plessy v. Ferguson

Post-Modernism

Post-Reconstruction (in the U.S.)

Queer Theory

Race (as applied to groups of people; what are the origins of the term, and what does it mean now?)

Racism

Realism

Reconstruction Era (in the U.S.)

Selma

Sexuality

Southern Strategy (of the Republican Party)

Stonewall (in reference to GLBT liberation)

Subject/Subjectivity

Vernacular

Watts

White/Whiteness/White Privilege