ICS 290F / ENG 345R Dr.
Kathleen Ward
Winter 2003 MFB
206
Welcome to our study of black
Course Requirements:
Near perfect
attendance and punctuality
High
levels of preparation and participation
Notebook
(see specifics below*) 100
pts.
Three
narrative essays 150
pts.
Three
Paragraphs: news accounts (culture/race relations) ungraded
Culture Presentation/Group Collaboration 50
pts.
Internet
searches ungraded
Final Exam 150
pts. (approx.)
*Notebook:
one entry each week, 300‑400 words per entry, number each entry
Occasionally entries will be assigned. Most
will be up to you. Your writing should
include critical analysis as well as personal responses to the readings and
discussions. Following are some writing
possibilities (meant to stir not limit your thinking):
1)
Critique a reading by isolating one or two points or ideas you find
particularly illuminating, either for what they convey (or seem to convey)
about African American culture, or for their relationship to the
critical/theoretical ideas discussed (or not discussed), or for how they relate
(or do not relate) to your own experience.
2)
Critique a class discussion, responding to either its content or the dynamics
of the discussion.
3)
Comment on a writer's craft, the way she or he writes and how effective you
find it.
4)
Discuss media representations you have observed of African American culture and
consider the reasons for and effects of those representations. Consider also: who is doing the representing
and for whom?
5)
Grapple with the complexities of race relations in the
6)
Discuss related matters of your own choosing.
Texts:
African American
Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology (AAL)
Their Eyes Were Watching
God, Zora Neale Hurston
Sula, Toni Morrison
The Gathering of Old Men, Ernest Gaines
Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in
Talking Back: Thinking
Feminist, Thinking Black, bell hooks
Online
Bell, Derrick. Faces at
the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism.
‑‑‑. "Racism Remains the Primary Obstacle
Facing African Americans." African Americans: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. William Dudley.
"Black Women Attack the Lynching System." Black Women in White
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge,
Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.
Cose, Ellis. “Rethinking Black Leadership.” Newsweek
---. “12 Things You Must Know
to Survive and Thrive in
Dace, Karen Lynette, and Mark
Lawrence McPhail. "Crossing the Color Line: from Empathy to Implicature
in Intercultural Communication."
Dubois, W.E.B. "Blacks
Should Strive for Political Equality." African Americans: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed.
William Dudley.
‑‑‑.
"The Higher Education of a Leadership Elite
Should Be Emphasized." African Americans: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. William Dudley.
McIntosh, Peggy. "White Privilege: Unpacking the
Invisible Backpack." Women: Images and Realities. Ed. Amy Kesselman, Lily D. McNair, and
Nancy Schniedewind.
Morrison, Toni. Lecture and Speech of
Acceptance upon the Award of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
C. "Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro‑American
Presence in American Literature."
Sherard, Tracy. "Sonny's Bebop:
Steele,
Walker,
Washington, Booker T. "Blacks Should Not Agitate for Political
Equality." African Americans: Opposing
Viewpoints. Ed. William Dudley.
‑‑‑. "The Industrialized Training of the
Masses Should Be Emphasized." African Americans: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. William Dudley.
West, Cornel. Race Matters.
Jan. 8 Course and
Participant (that’s you and me) Introductions
13 Review
handout: what does it suggest about our study of African American literature,
culture, and race relations? (bring reading notes and
answers)
Narrative Essay #1 due class time. "What I know and don't know about African
Americans and their culture" (approximately two typed pages; come prepared
to discuss your response; ungraded)
Search
for African American websites. Bring 2-3
website addresses.
15 Poetry
Begin
Their Eyes Were Watching God (including introduction)
"Recitatif," Toni
Morrison, 209‑25, AAL.
Internet
Searches: Toni Morrison
Zora Neale Hurston
20 Human Rights Day
22
Discussion
Organize
for small group discussion
(“Against
the Odds,” VT4555, 60 min., viewing response due
27 Their Eyes Were Watching God
Small
and large group discussion
29 Discussion, Their Eyes: Language,
Idiom, Imagery (come with several examples; review Henry Louis Gates’s Afterword)
In-class: Organize for Group Cultural Presentations
Notebook Check, 3 entires
Notebook
Entry #3: Focus on some aspect of Hurston’s novel that excites/interests/intrigues you. Perhaps it is a single insight or idea,
perhaps a meaningful image or sensation.
Whatever it is, explore it. Delve
into it. Place it in context. What does it convey to you about black
culture, as seen and experienced by ZNH?
Does it have relevance today? Why
or why not?
Feb. 3 Oral Proposal
for Culture Presentation (narrowed topic, preliminary questions)
Black Women / Lynching System (online)
Booker T. Washington (2 readings, online) Students A-N
W.E.B. DuBois (2 readings,
online) Students O –Z
Internet Searches: Frederick
Douglass
Sojourner Truth
14th Amendment
Plessy vs.
Jim Crow
In‑class:
"Booker T. and W.E.B.," Dudley Randall (bring AAL text)
Begin
Sula
5 Poetry: Langston Hughes
"The Winding Sheet," Ann Petry, 141‑48 (AAL)
"Violence
in Intimate Relationships," bell hooks (TB, Chapt.
12)
“Feminist Focus on Men: A Comment,” bell
hooks (TB, Chapt. 18) optional
Internet Search: bell hooks/Gloria Watkins
10 Criticism: “Mothers/Othermothers,”
Patricia Hill Collins reading (online)
“The Lesson,” Toni Cade Bambara, 270-76 (AAL)
“Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid, 310 (AAL),
Read aloud
12 Poetry: Lucille Clifton
Reading Quiz, Sula
In‑class: Toni Morrison film, VT3011 (25 min.)
17 Presidents’ Day
19 Sula,
Discussion
Full Draft, Narrative Essay #2, class time (no notebook entry this week)
Review for Mid-term
Criticism: “An African Based Reading of Sula” (online)
26 "Sonny's Blues," James
Baldwin, 158‑83 (AAL)
Criticism:
Tracy Sherard reading, optional (online)
In‑class:
James Baldwin film (excerpt) VT3016
Internet Search: James
Baldwin
Ralph
Ellison
Ernest
Gaines
Feb.27-Mar. 1 Mid‑term, Testing Center
3 Sixties Review: Five remarkable minutes of key information
plus a visual.
Brown
vs. Board of Education/Thurgood
Rosa
Parks/Montgomery Bus Boycott
NAACP/Little
Rock/Daisy Bates
Malcolm
X
March
on
SNCC/Black
Power
Angela
Davis/Stokley
The
Moynihan Report
Freedom
Summer
James
Meredith/Medgar Evars
Civil
Rights Act of 1964/Voting Rights Act of 1965
Black
Arts
Begin A
Gathering of Old Men
5 Black Intellectuals/Activists (on-line)
Derrick Bell, “Racism
Remains the Primary Obstacle Facing African Americans”
Derrick Bell, “The Space Traders”
(from Faces at the Bottom of the Well)
Shelby
Steele, “Liberal Bias and the Zone of Decency” (from A Dream Deferred)
10
Culture
Presentations #1 and #2
Notebook
Check, 7 entries
12 Reading Quiz, A
Gathering of Old Men
Discussion
Assignments
for African American Meal
17 A Gathering of Old Men,
Discussion
Narrative
Essay #3 on A Gathering of Old Men (as a notebook entry)
Class
time: Introduction to Nathan McCall and Makes Me Wanna
Holler
19 Culture Presentation #3
Begin Makes Me Wanna
Holler
24 Guest, Cherie Floyd (tentative) Ho’okupu
Ellis
Cose, “Rethinking Black Leadership,” and “12 Things
You Must Know to Survive and Thrive in
Amy
Alexander, any “Between the Lines” column found on africana.com
Required notebook entry on today’s readings
26 Kuhio Day
31
Culture Presentations
#5 and #6
Notebook
Check, 9 entries
April 2 Reading Quiz and
Discussion: Makes Me Wanna Holler, first half
7
Reading Quiz and Discussion, Makes Me Wanna Holler, second
half
9 Poetry: Derek Walcott
Discussion,
Makes Me Wanna Holler / “Crossing the Color
Line” (on-line)
(Focus on MMWH in your last two notebook
entries)
Review for Final Exam
14
Black Public Intellectuals
Cornel West, Race Matters (“Nihilism in Black
America”) on-line
bell hooks, Chapters 11, 14, 16 (TB)
16 Children’s/Young
Adult’s Literature Review
Last Class Wrap-Up: So How Did We Do?
Notebooks Due, class time 11 Entries plus Course and
Self Evaluation
Final Exam: Friday, April 18,
.