Introduction to African American Literature
Fall Quarter 2015
English 43/143
T-Th, 1:30-2:50am
Prof. Vaughn Rasberry
Office hours: T-Th, 11:00-12:30 pm and by appointment
**This syllabus is provisional and subject to change.**
Course Description
In his bold new study, What Was African American Literature?, Kenneth Warren defines African American literature as a late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century response to the nation’s Jim Crow racial order. But in the aftermath of the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement, can critics still speak, coherently, of “African American literature”? Taking up Warren’s intervention, this course will explore African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals and slave narratives to texts composed at the height of the desegregation struggle. We will engage some of the defining debates and phenomena within African American cultural history, including the status of realist aesthetics in black writing; the contested role of literature in black political struggle; the question of diaspora; the problem of intra-racial racism; and the emergence of black internationalism. Attuned to the invariably hybrid nature of this tradition, we will also devote attention to the discourse of the Enlightenment, modernist aesthetics, and the role of Marxism in black political and literary history.
Goals of the Course:
Beyond the important goal of giving you a chance to be pulled in by this rich and frankly amazing body of literature, this course has four primary aims.
Literary History—
You’ll become familiar and conversant with major works and currents in the history of African American literary expression from the period of slavery to the post-Civil Rights era.
Critical Vocabulary—
You’ll build a repertoire of critical, historical, and political concepts that provide invaluable contexts for understanding African American literature. You’ll draw on this repertoire in discussing and interpreting works and in framing arguments. Key concepts include: the Black Atlantic, double-consciousness, the Black International, the Great Migration, expatriation, desegregation, modernism and modernity, social realism, and the bildungsroman.
Writing and Argument—
You’ll practice becoming more mature and nuanced writers on the level of sentences and on the level of arguments. You’ll be guided and encouraged to move beyond isolated close readings, to situate the works in significant contexts, and to be attentive to the complex and surprising relationships between literary texts and their contexts.
Asking the Big Questions—
You’ll grapple with some of the most fundamental questions surrounding this literature: What is African American literature? What defines and unifies it? How should we approach and read these works? What is “race”? What is “modernity”? Do we live in a “post-racial” era? How do we understand the contribution of African American literature to global culture and human rights struggles? These remain contentious and open questions. You’ll analyze and evaluate answers that have been put forth and formulate your own answers.
Required Texts(other readings will be posted on Coursework)
Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk
Larsen, Quicksand and Passing
Wright, Black Boy
Morrison, Song of Solomon
Warren, What Was African American Literature? (available online via Stanford’s library)
Evaluation
Essay One: 30%
Essay Two: 30%
Final Exam: 20%
Reading Journal: 10%
Participation: 10%
Essays
Essays will be between 1200-1500 words in length. They should be typed, double-spaced, and in 12-point font. I’ll assign topics in advance; you’re also welcome to propose your own topic, subject to approval. You’ll also have the opportunity to revise the first essay for a higher grade.
Attendance
Attendance and active participation are crucial to the success of this course. You may miss two classes without penalty, but each subsequent (unexcused) absence will result in a three-percentage point deduction from your final grade. I am not, however, inflexible about this policy: if you encounter some circumstance that leads to your increased absence, then let me know what is going on—just don’t wait until the end of the quarter to do so. Communication is key.
Reading Journal
For each week I ask that you write about 200 words on the week’s reading. This practice is meant to give you an opportunity to reflect on the readings, to provide you with ideas to discuss in class, and to improve your writing. But the journal is also a site for exploratory thinking—your ideas needn’t be rigorously formulated—that can serve as a catalyst for your essay or even other intellectual interests. I strongly recommend that you isolate a certain short passage that you reproduce at the top of the page (a sentence or two, or even a mere phrase) and reflect on why and how the writer uses those particular words, and to what effect. We’ll model some examples of this kind of thinking and writing in class.
Students with Disabilities
"Students with Documented Disabilities: Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066, URL:
Reading Schedule
- Race, Slavery, Modernity
September 22
Introduction: What Is (or Was) African American Literature?
September 24
Jacobs, Incidents, chapters I-XII
September 29
Jacobs, Incidents, chapters XIII-XXVIII
October 1
Jacobs, Incidents, chapters XXIX-end
- Double Consciousness, Color Consciousness
October 6
Du Bois, Souls, “The Forethought” and chapters I-IV
October 8
Du Bois, Souls, chapters V-IX
October 13
Du Bois, Souls, chapters X-XIV and “The After-Thought”
October 15
Alain Locke, “The New Negro” (Coursework)
Larsen, Passing (FIRST ESSAY DUE)
October 20
Larsen, Passing
III. Black Autobiography and the Twentieth-Century Color Line
October 22
Wright, Black Boy
October 27
Wright, Black Boy
October 29
Wright, Black Boy
November 3
Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville (Coursework); Mid-quarter reflection and synthesis: What kinds of African American literature have we seen thus far?
- Interrogating Desegregation and Expatriation
November 5
Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
November 10
Baldwin, The Fire Next Time; Murray, “A Question of Identity” (Coursework)(SECOND ESSAY DUE)
November 12
Smith, The Stone Face
- After African American Literature?
November 17
Morrison, Song of Solomon
November 19
Morrison, Song of Solomon
November 23-27: Thanksgiving Recess (no classes)
December 1
Warren, What (chapter 3)
December 3
Warren, What Was African American Literature? (conclusion) and the
Los Angeles Review of Books: What is African American Literature? A Symposium(online)
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