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Dr. Ann Rayson, University of Hawaii
English 780F
This is an American literature course for graduate students in the M.A. and Ph.D. programs. The student is expected to have taken courses in American literature, but not necessarily in African-American literature, before taking this course. After taking this course, graduate students should have a solid grounding in the texts and historical background of African American literature. They should be able to do research in this field and teach these works in other courses.
This course will focus on texts by African American writers from the early nineteenth century to the present. The goal of the seminar will be:
1) to introduce students to important African American texts not generally familiar and to reread more popular or familiar texts in light of critical theory,
2) to read texts as cultural, social, and historical documents as well as literary texts, thus expanding student understanding of African American intellectual, social, and political history, and
3) to apply recent developments in African American critical theory to the reading of these texts.
Although students will be encouraged to bring their own theoretical, critical, and historical interests to the reading of these texts, we will establish some common ground by posing general questions about "race" in American literature and how race has influenced the writing of literature by both white and black Americans. Thus, we will look at American history beginning with slavery to determine how history influences and determines literary output, message, and audience.
The course is divided into six sections, each devoted to a particular critical issue, problem, or theme. While the material presented is largely chronological, the focus on related critical problems will sometimes disrupt chronology; for example, the section on the literature of slavery will span 150 years from ante-bellum slave narratives to contemporary novels about slavery; the literature of social criticism will move from the 1930s to the 1960s. Course divisions include "Portraying Slavery," "The Genteel Tradition: Racial Issues in the Late Nineteenth Century,""The Novel of Passing and the Harlem Renaissance," "The Literature of Social Criticism: The Thirties and the Sixties," "The Lessons of History: Baldwin and Ellison,"and "Reading Family Matters: Contemporary Women Writers and Their Critics."
"The Portrayal of Slavery"spans 150 years from ante-bellum slave narratives to contemporary novels about slavery. We will first read the classic American slave narrative by Frederick Douglass and the rewriting by Harriet Wilson, which reveals new problems for the female slave concerning how to present this experience effectively to white readers. Sherley Ann Williams writes Dessa Rose (1986) in part to reconstruct the female slave experience and in part to subvert the co-opting of Nat Turner's Confession by William Styron. Williams seeks to overturn myths of sex and race during slavery. Finally Toni Morrison writes Beloved (1987) as a "monument" to slavery where none exists in America by portraying the internal lives of slaves, who were only known to white readers in literary representations as either noble or base.
The Genteel Tradition at the turn of the century came into being after former slaves had developed a literate middle class under two generations of "freedom." Novelists of this period such as Chesnutt, DuBois, and Harper portrayed black characters as role models of educational achievement, cultivated manners, and social responsibility. Heroes and heroines were invariably light skinned and upper class, DuBois's "talented tenth." They espoused the values of the puritan work ethic so that white readers would be sympathetic to the general black plight in America and black readers would be inspired to emulate these characters. The debate during this era was between the ideological positions of W. E. B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. Washington in Up from Slavery espoused the value of hard work and avoidance of political activity, which would antagonize whites. If blacks worked hard and showed they were worthy, then whites, out of the goodness of their hearts, would make sure blacks in actuality got the legal rights they were granted on paper in the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. DuBois, on the other hand, in The Souls of Black Folk and other writings and speeches, stressed the importance of civil rights, particularly the right to vote. Black people had to insist on their rights to get them; problems in the literature of this period concern the running debate over the best way to proceed. In Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition, the hero, Dr. Miller, a member of the talented tenth, rises above personal interest to avert tragedy for a white family, while the poor black militant character dies, but remains as a voice warning the reader of future developments in this direction should the noble Millers not be heeded.
The novel of passing, always a popular genre, came to the forefront during the Harlem Renaissance for a number of reasons. For the first time, it was almost fashionable to be black, at least in New York City. The literature of this period either valorizes the exotic primitive or questions the meaning of color and examines the ways it can be escaped or negated. James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) posits a hero who tries an identity as a black man, then a white man, finally deciding to pass. The conventional dilemma in the passing novel comes with a love interest and the fear of miscegenation. The character who passes must either deny a relationship or refuse to pass. Usually dire consequences face the passer, especially if a woman. Judith Butler sees passing as a coded metaphor for "queering"in Larsen's Passing; Larsen's Quicksand explores Helga Crane's agony over her mixed identity as a European and an African American. In Plum Bun, Jessie Fauset details the unhappy passage of a black woman from black life to white life and back again.
Richard Wright dominated African American literature after the Harlem Renaissance until challenged by Ellison and Baldwin. He established the literature of social protest as the only literature worth writing and naturalism as the only acceptable style in the forties when many black writers, their heyday in Harlem deflated by the Depression, joined the Communist Party and worked for the WPA. Wright's school dominated the forties, waned in the fifties, and and then saw its revival in the sixties as the Black Arts Movement after the early civil rights movement evolved into the black power movement.
In the early fifties Baldwin and Ellison came out with major novels to challenge Wright's position as the voice of black America. Baldwin in "Many Thousands Gone," "Everybody's Protest Novel,"and "Alas Poor Richard" and Ellison in "Richard Wright's Blues"critique Wright's critical theory and offer their own. Both Go Tell It on the Mountain and Invisible Man use the myths and lessons of history to reveal the black experience. Eric Sundquist's source book on Invisible Man provides invaluable backgrounds for reading all works by black writers of the first half of this century.
The final section of the course takes its title from a chapter of Deborah McDowell's "The Changing Same": Black Women's Literature, Criticism, and Theory (1995). In the last generation African American women writers have come to dominate the novel. The two major writers, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, have been subject to the criticism of black male writers for reasons that are worth investigating. Alice Walker has been a particular target for The Color Purple, attacked by Spike Lee and Ishmael Reed among others. As McDowell examines the system of book reviews, we see a pattern developing in which major white presses (The New York Times Book Review, for example) hire black male writers to review books by black women, thus structuring an attack mode and creating a controversy. This is only part of what is at issue in "Reading Family Matters"; the debate has always existed. Black women writers have historically been persuaded to lay aside their differences with black men and concentrate on the larger issues affecting the race. This last section of 780F will review all of African American literature in light of "family matters"and issues important now to the black literary community.
The method of approach in this course relies on recent developments in African American critical theory: structural, feminist, new historicist. A grounding in the history, politics, and culture of race in America will provide the necessary structure for reading the literature of African American writers. My goal is to acquaint graduate students with the backgrounds of this literature and then with the most recent critics of African American literature and their approaches. In the last twenty years African American critical theory has come into its own and is now at the forefront of literary theory as a whole. Black writers and critics such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Houston A. Baker, Jr., Deborah McDowell, Barbara Christian, Hazel Carby, bell hooks, Cheryl Wall, and many others have established themselves as voices essential to any reading and understanding of American literature.
Methods and Procedures: Students will write a short paper (2 pages) after the first class meeting of the semester and a long paper (15-20 pages) due at the end of the semster on a critical problem or issue in African American literature and/or theory. They will also be required to present short discussion reports on critical readings on a rotating basis and present an oral report on their final research paper.
SYLLABUS for 16 Weeks:
General Critical Text: Afro-American Literary Study in the 1990s, ed. Houston A. Baker, Jr., and Patricia Redmond. U of Chicago P, 1989.
Paul Gilroy, "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity,"The Black Atlantic. Harvard UP, 1993.
I. Portraying Slavery: (4 weeks)
A. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845)
Critical essays by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. from Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the Racial Self (Oxford UP 1987): "Binary Oppositions in Chapter One of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself" and Sherley Anne Williams, "The Lion's History: The Ghetto Writes B[l]ack,"Soundings 76.2-3 (Summer/Fall 1993), 245-260.
B. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861), excerpt only.
Critical essays: "Read the Characters, Question the Motives: Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl"from The Word in Black and White: Reading "Race"in American Literature 1638-1867 by Dana D. Nelson (Oxford UP 1993).
Jean Fagan Yellin, "Texts and Contexts of Harriet Jacobs"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself,"The Slave's Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Oxford UP 1985).
Lauren Berlant, "The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Anita Hill,"in Subjects and Citizens: Nation, Race, and Gender from Oroonoko to Anita Hill, eds. Michael Moon and Cathy N. Davidson (Duke UP 1995).
C. Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose (1986).
Critical essay by Deborah McDowell, "Witnessing Slavery After Freedom - Dessa Rose"in Reading Family Matters (1995).
D. Toni Morrison, Beloved ( 1987).
Critical essay by Marilyn Sanders Mobley, "A Different Remembering: Memory, History, and Meaning in Beloved,"Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, ed. Gates (1993).
II. The Genteel Tradition: Racial Issues in the Late Nineteenth Century (2 weeks)
A. Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition (1901) and short stories.
William L. Andrews, "The Representation of Slavery and the Rise of Afro-American Realism, 1865-1920,"in Slavery and the Literary Imagination (1989).
B. W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), selections from. Anthony Appiah, "The Uncompleted Argument: DuBois and the Illusion of Race,""Race," Writing, and Difference, ed. Gates (Chicago UP 1985).
C. Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901), selections from.
W. E. B. DuBois, "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others"from SBF (1903).
August Meier, "Booker T. Washington: An Interpretation," Negro Thought and Expression in America: 1880-1915.
Houston Baker, "Booker T. Washington's Mastery of Form," from Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance (1987).
III. The Novel of Passing and the Harlem Renaissance (2-3 weeks)
A. Nella Larsen, Passing (1929) and Quicksand (1928).
Critical essays by Deborah MCDowell, "'The Nameless . . . Shameful Impulse': Sexuality in Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Passing2; Judith Butler from Bodies That Matter, 1993.
Cheryl Wall, "Passing for What? Aspects of Identity in Nella Larsen's Novels,2 Black American Literature Forum 20 (1986): 104.
Cheryl Wall, Women of the Harlem Renaissance (Indiana UP 1996), selections from.
B. Jean Toomer, Cane (1923), "Kabnis."
Ann Ducille, "Blue Notes on Black Sexuality: Sex and the Texts of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen," Journal of the History of Sexuality 1993, vol. 3, no. 3.
C. James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912).
D. Zora Neale Hurston, excerpts from Dust Tracks on a Road (1941) and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937); deconstructing race. The problems of race and autobiography. Hurston's review of Uncle Tom's Children (SRL, April 2, 1938).
Critical reading: Barbara Johnson, Thresholds of Difference: Structures of Address in Zora Neale Hurston, "Race," Writing, and Difference, ed. Gates (1985).
Richard Wright, "Between Laughter and Tears," New Masses 25 (Oct. 5, 1937) 22-25; Review of Their Eyes Were Watching God.
IV. The Literature of Social Criticism: The Thirties and the Sixties (2 weeks)
A. Richard Wright, excerpts from Uncle Tom's Cabin (1937), Native Son (1940), and Black Boy (1945). Critical essays: Irving Howe, "Black Boys and Native Sons.2 "Many Thousands Gone," "Everybody's Protest Novel,"and "Alas Poor Richard" by James Baldwin. "Richard Wright's Blues" by Ralph Ellison.
Carla Cappetti, "Sociology of an Existence: Wright and the Chicago School2
Trudier Harris, "Native Sons and Foreign Daughters,"New Essays on Richard Wright, ed. Keneth Kinnamon. Cambridge UP 1990. (Examines Wright's treatment of women in fiction)
B. The Black Arts Movement: Baraka, Bullins, Sanchez, Jordan, Reed; essays on by Larry Neal; Ed Bullins, "The So-called Western Avant-garde Drama"; Toni Cade, "Black Theater."
V. The Lessons of History (2 weeks)
A. James Baldwin, excerpts from essays; Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953). Eldridge Cleaver's "Notes on a Native Son."
B. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952); Cultural Contexts for Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, ed. Eric Sundquist (1995).
VI. Reading Family Matters: Contemporary Women Writers and Their Critics (2 weeks)
A. Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982).
Critical readings: Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg, Ishmael Reed
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. "Color Me Zora: Alice Walker's (Re) Writing of the Speakerly Text, The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (Oxford UP 1988). bell hooks, "Reading and Resistance: The Color Purple"in Gates ed. Critical Perspectives.
Lauren Berlant, "Race, Gender, and Nation in The Color Purple"in Critical Perspectives.
B. Toni Morrison, Tar Baby (1981); "Recitatif."
Critical readings: from Trudier Harris, Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison (1991) and Marilyn Saunders Mobley, "Narrative Dilemma: Jadine as Cultural Orphan in Tar Baby,"Critical Perspectives (1993).
English 780F African American Literature and Theory
Dr. Ann Rayson
KUY 517 956-3054 Fridays 3:30-6:00 pm
Sakamaki B301 Office Hours: Tues.2:00-3:00, Fri. 2:30-3:30
SCHEDULE of Readings
8/29: Introduction to course; "Ethnic Notions"with short paper (2 pages) due 9/5
9/5: Douglass and Jacobs: The Slave Narrative; critical readings to be assigned/presented
9/12: Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose with critical readings to be presented
9/19: Toni Morrison, Beloved with critical readings to be presented
9/26: The Marrow of Tradition; parts of The Souls of Black Folk and Up from Slavery, essays
10/3: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Cane ("Kabnis"); critical essays
10/10: Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing with critical essays
10/17: Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, other essays
10/24: Richard Wright, Native Son and parts of Black Boy, Uncle Tom's Cabin; reviews.
10/31: James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, with critical essays on Richard Wright
11/7: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man with Critical Contexts for (Eric Sundquist)
11/14: Alice Walker, The Color Purple and critical essays (Walker, Spike Lee, Ishmael Reed)
11/21: Toni Morrison, Tar Baby and "Recitatif,"critical essays, black feminist critics
12/5: Final papers presented as oral reports; final papers due