English

2281 / African American Studies 2281 (Spring 2014)

INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE:

TRAUMA, VIOLENCE, AND ARTISTIC RESPONSE

Tuesday & Thursday 2:20-3:40pm

University Hall 0038

Instructor: Blake Wilder
Email: wilder.75@osu.edu
Office: Denney 513
Office Hours Thursday 9am - Noon

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course offers a survey of African American literature from its beginnings through the late 20th century,
introducting students to African American-authored writings from a variety of genres (autobiography, poetry,
novels, drama, and oratory). While this course is designed to function as a general and introductory survey, we will
give special attention to the way that African American literature reflects, responds to, and resists the trauma and
violence experienced by the African American community from the middle passage, to slavery, to lynching, to Jim
Crow segregation, to Civil Rights clashes, to contemporary criminalization. This theme will provide a focus for
conversations about a wide and varied body of literature and will give us a starting point for a range of general
questions:
How do works of African American literature respond to the social, political, or aesthetic conditions of a
given historical period?
Why are certain genre conventions or tropes so prevalent?
How do particular writers attempt to influence social, political, or economic conditions of their milieu?
How does a particular writers work represent, revise, or anticipate the works of other writers past and
future?
Moreover, we will focus on violence and trauma as a strategy to contextualize African American literature not as
something separate from a larger American tradition but as a literary tradition in dialectical tension with Anglo-
American culture and literature. African American literature may present a unique perspective, but the issues
addressed in that literature Freedom, Democracy, the success of the American Dream are quintessentially
American. By tracing the development of African American literature within the context of American culture, we
will hope to reveal something universal about the relationship between adversity and art.
All my work, my life, everything is about survival. All my work is meant to say, You may encounter many
defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, the encountering may be the very experience which creates
the vitality and the power to endure.









~Maya Angelou

COURSE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

1) Goal: Students will appreciate and be able to describe African American literature as distinct sub-genre of
American Literature
Expected Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to
name major authors and works associated with African American literature
describe the formal and aesthetic qualities of those authors/works
recognize themes and motifs that might identify a work as African American literature
relate features of a text to the historical or cultural background of the African American community
2) Goal: Students will gain familiarity with the basic approaches of literary analysis
Expected Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to
identify and analyze the most significant features of multiple genres (prose, poetry, drama etc.)
interpret the meaning of text through close readings of those features
construct an original argument about a text
compare and contrast trends across multiple works of literature
3) Goal: Students will gain confidence in articulating and communicating their ideas
Expected Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to
participate in collaborative conversations about subjective interpretations
discuss ideas orally, openly, and clearly
organize, compose, and revise sophisticated arguments in writing

This course satisfies the requirement for GEC category 2.C.1 Arts and Humanities-Literature
The goal of courses in this category is for you to evaluate significant writing and works of art. Such studies develop
capacities for aesthetic and historical response and judgment; interpretation and evaluation; critical listening,
reading, seeing, thinking, and writing; and experiencing the arts and reflecting on that experience.
and category 4.1 Diversity: Social Diversity in the United States
The goal of courses in this category is to foster an understanding of the pluralistic nature of institutions, society,
and culture in the United States.

REQUIRED TEXTS
The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 2nd ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr and Nellie McKay, eds. New York:
Norton, 2004.
Sula, Toni Morrison.
Additional required readings will be available through CARMEN

Grade Scale

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING

Response Papers
Close Reading Paper
Comparative Paper
Unit Quizzes
Final Exam

Participation

10%
20%
20%
10%
25%
15%

Response Papers

A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D

93-100
90-92
87-89
83-86
80-82
77-79
73-76
70-71
67-69
60-66

1 page, due on Quiz days (on schedule)

You will write a one-page, single-spaced response paper for each of the four unit of our course. These response
papers are intended to give you practice forming your ideas about the text we are reading. Although theses
response papers are informal (i.e. you dont need a proper introduction or thesis statement), you should practice
close reading by quoting and referring to direct passages for whichever text you chose. Response papers will be
graded informally without written feedback. You will receive check-plus (100%), check (85%), check-minus
(70%), or minus (55%). You can revise any of your response papers at any point in the semester, but you must
come to my office hours and discuss your response paper before revising. You can only discuss one possible
revision per office visit.

Close Reading Paper

3-4 pages, due February 11th

For this assignment, you will select a section of one of the texts we have read for class. Your selection might be as
short as a couple lines of poetry and should be no longer than a paragraph or two at most. You will retype the
selection and attach it to your paper. You will focus on some image, symbol, description, or word choice in your
chosen selection to explain the meaning of that selection and its relation to the work as a whole. Your paper should
have an organized structure, including a clear introduction and thesis statement, and should support your
argument with at least three specific references to the selection.

Comparative Paper

4-5 pages, due March 25th

For this assignment, you will choose two separate works by two separate authors. You will compare and contrast
how each text uses some common feature (character type, plot action, genre convention, symbol, etc.). By coming
to some conclusion about the similarities and differences between the two usages, you will aim to make a claim
about trends within African American literature as a tradition. Your paper should have and organized structure,
including a clear introduction and thesis statement, and should balance the two primary texts in a logical and
sophisticated manner.

All papers should be turned in as a hardcopy in class. Papers should have a creative title that points to your
interpretation of the primary text. Papers should have a heading that includes your name, the class number, my
name, and the assignment name. Papers should have 1 margins, be double-spaced, and be in Times New Roman
12 pt. or equivalent font.

Quizzes

in-class, dates on schedule

These formal quizzes will expose you to the types of questions that you can expect on the final exam. The Daily
Schedule lists the dates and covered topics for each quiz. Missed quizzes cannot be made up without written
documentation of an excused absence.

Final Exam

April 23rd

The final exam will have multiple-choice and short answer questions, as well as some passage identifications. The
final exam will include material from the entire course.

Participation
Literature and the interpretation of literature are not about right answers, but are about meanings within and
across communities. Consequently, your active participation in the classroom community is crucial to the success
of this course for yourself and for you fellow students.
1) Readings: You are expected to complete all the readings of the course
2) Engagement: Although not everyone is comfortable speaking up in a large class, it is important that
everyone be engaged. Signs of disengagement (falling asleep in class, staring into space, texting on your
phone, not having the reading for the day) will lower your participation grade.

COURSE POLICIES
Attendance is understood as an essential part of participation. Excused absences, such as those for documented
illness, family tragedy, religious observance, or travel for inter-collegiate athletics, will not affect your grade. More
than nine unexcused absences will automatically result in failure for the course.

Diversity in thought and respect for other students are of the utmost importance to our classroom community. Our
classroom should be a place where every student feels safe to express his or her ideas. Respect for other students
and their ideas means that one will not be discriminated against or made to feel uncomfortable because of their
race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religious faith, physical ability, or national origin. If individuals are unable to
respect other students or a diversity of opinions then their participation grade will suffer. Sometimes these cultural
conflicts emerge without us even being aware of them. I will speak to students who may be unintentionally
disrespectful either in the classroom as a learning opportunity for everyone or one-on-one.

Class Cancellation Policy: In the unlikely event that I have to cancel class due to emergency, I will contact you via
email and request that a note be placed on the door. In addition, I will contact you as soon as possible following
cancellation to let you know what will be expected of you for our next class meeting.

Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct is the representation of anothers works or ideas as ones own; it includes the
unacknowledged word for word use and/or paraphrasing of another persons work, and/or the unacknowledged
use of another persons ideas. It is the responsibility of the Committee on Academic Misconduct to investigate or
establish procedures for the investigation of all reported cases of student academic misconduct. The term
academic misconduct includes all forms of student academic misconduct wherever committed; illustrated by, but
not limited to, cases of plagiarism and dishonest practices in connection with examinations. Instructors shall
report all instances of alleged academic misconduct to the committee (Faculty Rule 3335-5-487). For additional
information, see the Code of Student Conduct. Academic Misconduct (rule 3335-31-02) is defined as any activity
which tends to compromise the academic integrity of the institution, or subvert the educational process. Please
refer to rule 3335-31-02 in the student code of conduct for examples of academic misconduct.

RESOURCES

Students with disabilities that have been certified by the Office for Disability
Services will be appropriately accommodated, and should inform the instructor
as soon as possible of their needs. The Office for Disability Services is located in
150 Pomerene Hall, 1760 Neil Avenue; telephone 292-3307, TDD 292-0901;
OSU Office for disability Services.

The OSU Writing Center offers the following free services to members of the OSU community:
Help with any assignment (ranging from lab reports to dissertations) at any stage of thewriting process
(brainstorming, thesis development, revising, etc.).
Face-to-face, 50 minute tutorials by appointment at our main location in 4120A Smith Labs, Monday
through Friday!
Online tutoring sessions via Carmen by appointment.
Walk in appointments at our two satellite locations!
Smith-Steeb dorms, Monday-Wednesday, 7-9pm.
Thompson library 4th floor (room 460), Monday-Thursday, 11am-3pm and 5-7pm.
Online appointment scheduling, available 24/7.
Please visit http://cstw.osu.edu or call 688-4291 to make an appointment.

DAILY SCHEDULE
The schedule of readings is subject to change. I will notify you by email and post a revised schedule to CARMEN if
there are changes.
All page numbers refer to the second edition of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (NAAAL).
Page numbers are meant to point you to the right spot and give you a sense of the length of the selection. Read
each selection entirely, even if its page numbers are not an exact match for the page numbers listed on the
syllabus (especially for selections of multiple poems).
You are expected the Introductory Note for each author.

Thursday, January 9th
Syllabus & Policies

Tuesday, January 14th
How Do I Read Poetry (3 pages)


Analytical Writing an Overview (10 pages)

NAAAL
Intoduction: Talking Books



The Literature of Slavery and Freedom, 1746-1865
Phillis Wheatley,





from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
To Maecenas
To the University of Cambridge, in New-England
On Being Brought from Africa to America
Venture Smith,





A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture,

[CARMEN]
[CARMEN]

pp. xxvii-xlvii
pp. 152-162
pp. 213-220

pp. 168-185

pp. 385-452

pp. 245-249

pp. 279-313

Thursday, January 16th
Frederick Douglass,
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Tuesday, January 21st

Sojourner Truth,
Arnt I a Woman? (both versions)
Harriet Jacobs,
from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Thursday, January 23rd
No reading



Quiz on Early African American Literature
First Response Paper Due


Tuesday, January 28th
How Do I Read Short Fiction (5 pages)


Reading (and Writing about) Fiction (15 pages)

NAAAL
Literature of the Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance, 1865-1919

[CARMEN]
[CARMEN]

pp. 541-554
pp. 130-131
pp. 142-143
pp. 144-145
pp. 145-146

pp. 602-613
[CARMEN]
[CARMEN]

pp. 675-676
[CARMEN]

Paul Laurence Dunbar,

Ode to Ethiopia
The Colored Soldiers
An Ante-Bellum Sermon
We Wear the Mask
Sympathy
The Haunted Oak
Douglass
The Fourth of July and Race Outrages
Frederick Douglass,
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
Booker T. Washington,


The Atlanta Exposition Address

pp. 905-927*

pp. 462-473
pp. 570-571
pp. 594-602

W.E.B Du Bois,


from The Souls of Black Folk

pp. 686-689
pp. 692-730

pp. 730-766

pp. 791-793
pp. 803-836

pp. 836-883

Folk Tales





Brer Rabbit Tricks Fox Again


The Wonderful Tar-baby Story


How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox
Charles Chesnutt,
The Goophered Grapevine


Po Sandy




Daves Neckliss

Thursday, January 30th
Ida B. Wells-Barnett,

Mob Rule in New Orleans

Tuesday, February 4th

Thursday, February 6th

Tuesday, February 11th
Close Reading Paper due
W.E.B Du Bois,


from The Souls of Black Folk

Thursday, February 13th

James Weldon Johnson,

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Tuesday, February 18th
Quiz on Reconstruction and the New Negro
James Weldon Johnson,
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Thursday, February 20th

NAAAL
Harlem Renaissance, 1919-1940
Alain Locke,


The New Negro
Countee Cullen,


Heritage


Gwendolyn Bennett,

Heritage

pp. 953-962
pp. 983-993

pp. 1339-1341
pp. 1347-1350
pp. 1266-1269

Tuesday, February 25th

Claude McKay,

If We Must Die
To The White Fiends
America
Enslaved
The White House
Jean Toomer,

Portrait in Georgia
Blood-burning Moon

pp. 1003-1009*

pp. 1168-1170
p. 1186
pp. 1186-1192

pp.1288-1302*

p. 45


pp. 1278-1280

p. 1269

p. 1351

pp. 1019-1030

pp. 1282-1288

pp. 1224-1236

Thursday, February 27th

Langston Hughes,


The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Mother to Son
Danse Africaine
Dream Variations
The Weary Blues
I, Too
Homesick Blues
Po Boy Blues
Mulatto
Song for a Dark Girl
Afro-American Fragment
Christ in Alabama
Abel Meerpool/Billie Holiday
Strange Fruit

Arna Bontemps,


A Black Man Talks of Reaping
Gwendolyn Bennett,

Hatred



Countee Cullen,
From the Dark Tower

Tuesday, March 4th

Zora Neal Hurston,

Sweat
Arna Bontemps,

A Summer Tragedy
Rudolph Fisher,

City of Refuge

Thursday, March 6th

Quiz on the Harlem Renaissance
Wallace Thurman,



from Infants of the Spring (Ch. XXI)

pp. 1269-1278

NAAAL,
Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism, 1940-1960
Richard Wright,





Ethics of Living Jim Crow



The Man Who Lived Underground

pp. 1355-1369
pp. 1399-1403
pp. 1411-1419
pp. 1436-1470

[CARMEN]

[CARMEN]
[CARMEN]
[CARMEN]
pp. 1623-1625
[CARMEN]
[CARMEN]
pp. 1919-1920
[CARMEN]

[CARMEN]

SPRING BREAK

Tuesday, March 18th

Thursday, March 20th
Christopher Metress,
Literary Representations of the Lynching of Emmett Till
Langston Hughes,
Mississippi1955




The Money, Mississippi Blues



I feel Mississippis Fist in My Own Face, Simple Says
Gwendolyn Brooks,




A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi,

The Last Quatrain of Emmett Till


Audre Lorde,





After-Images





George Coleman,
Some Negro Mother

Tuesday, March 25th

Comparative Paper Due

James Baldwin,


Going to Meet the Man

J.C. Collins,
Letter to the Editor

Martin Luther King Jr.,

Letter from Birmingham Jail

pp. 1696-1699
pp. 1750-1760

[CARMEN]


pp. 1895-1908

pp. 1535-1538
pp. 1548-1570

Lorainne Hansberry,
A Raisin in the Sun

pp. 1771-1830

Lorainne Hansberry,
A Raisin in the Sun

pp. 1771-1830

Thursday, March 27th
Ralph Ellison,

from Invisible Man

Tuesday, April 1st

Thursday, April 3rd

Quiz on Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism

Tuesday, April 8th

Toni Morrison,




Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation
The Site of Memory

Thursday, April 10th
Toni Morrison,
Sula

pp. 2210-2214
pp. 2286-2299

Part One

Part Two

Tuesday, April 15th

Toni Morrison,
Sula

Thursday, April 17th

Final Exam Review
Course Evaluations

FINAL EXAM on Wednesday, April 23rd from 2:00pm-3:45pm