| COURSE NUMBER: |
ENGL 399G |
| COURSE TITLE: |
Special Topics in English - 2016/17 Fall: 20th Century
African-American Literature |
| NAME OF
INSTRUCTOR: |
Dr. Connor Byrne |
| CREDIT WEIGHT
AND WEEKLY TIME DISTRIBUTION: |
credits 3(hrs lect 3 - hrs sem 0 - hrs lab 0) |
| COURSE
DESCRIPTION: |
A course on a topic of figure of special interest to a
member of the English faculty and offered on a non-recurring
basis.
Prerequisites: ENGL 214, 215
2016/17 Fall
This course examines literary texts written by black Americans and
treating African-American experience within the twentieth century, a
period of tremendous change marked by racial strife, out of which
emerged a rich and varied body of literary expression. Students will
become familiar with the key concepts, terms, and discourses used to
discuss twentieth-century African-American experience and its
representation within literature. They will consider the social,
historical, cultural, and political forces shaping African-American
identities and communities, and, further, examine the complicated
debates surrounding race in America that animate the works considered.
|
| REQUIRED TEXTS: |
- Ellison,
Ralph. Invisible Man.
- Larsen,
Nella. Passing.
- Morrison,
Toni. Beloved.
- Walker,
Alice. The Color
Purple.
- Wright,
Richard. Native Son.
|
| MARK DISTRIBUTION IN PERCENT: |
| Attendance
& Participation |
10% |
| Seminar
Intro & Discussion Questions |
10% |
| Short Close
Reading Essay |
15% |
| Research Proposal |
5% |
| Term Research Paper |
30% |
| Final Examination |
30% |
|
|
|
100% |
|
| COURSE OBJECTIVES: |
- To come to class prepared and engaged, willing to
share your thoughts and questions etc.
- To explore a range of twentieth-century American
literary engagements with black experience and expression.
- To introduce students to key concepts, terms, and
discourses used to discuss African-American literature and culture.
- To consider the social, historical, cultural,
political, and economic formations that both shape and contest power
relations (race, class, gender, etc.) within white-supremacist American
society.
|
| COURSE OUTLINE: |
September
- 1: Introduction.
- 6: Booker T. Washington, from Up from Slavery (on
Moodle); W. E. B. Du Bois, from The
Souls of Black Folk (on Moodle).
- 8: Harlem Renaissance selections #1 (on Moodle).
- 13: Harlem Renaissance selections #2 (on Moodle);
blues, jazz. Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial
Mountain” (on Moodle).
- 15: Larsen, Passing.
- 20: Passing.
- 22: No Class: Winter I. S. Conference.
- 27: Wright, Native
Son.
- 29: Native
Son.
October
- 4: Native
Son.
- 6: Native
Son.
- 11: Ellison, Invisible
Man.
- 13: Invisible
Man.
- 18: Invisible
Man.
- 20: Invisible
Man.
- 25: Baldwin, TBA.
- 27: Civil Rights selections, TBA.
November
- 1: Walker, The
Color Purple.
- 3: The
Color Purple.
- 8: The
Color Purple.
- 10: Thanksgiving: No class.
- 15: Selections TBA: Brooks, Lorde, Baraka, Sanchez,
et al.
- 17: Selections TBA.
- 22: Morrison, Beloved.
- 24: Beloved.
- 29: Beloved.
December
- 1: Beloved.
- 6: Late-Century Selections TBA: Coates, Angelou, et
al.; hip hop.
- 8: Review.
|
