English 321: 02 African-American Narratives:

Baldwin, Morrison, and the Deep Democratic Tradition

Tuesdays and Fridays, 12:45-2:00pm
Room: C100 HN

Professor Frank Roberts

Department of English
Hunter College, City University of New York
Office Hours: By Appointment
E: frankroberts@nyu.edu

Course Blog: frankroberts.wordpress.com/huntercollege1

Course Description:
This seminar serves as an advanced introduction to various key moments in the oeuvre of two of the most influential
African American novelists of the post-civil rights era: James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. We will pay particular attention
to the various literary and rhetorical strategies Baldwin and Morrison deploy in their trenchant critiques of American
liberalism and the failed promises of U.S. democracy. Central themes this semester will include: the artist as social critic (or,
as Baldwin once put it, the artist as a disturber of the peace); the blues as metaphor and motif; the ongoing traumatic
legacies of chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and American apartheid; double and triple consciousness; the black body as a shifting
signifier; and literature as a site of the critical reconfiguration of history. In addition, we will be especially interested in
thinking about the use-value of Baldwin's and Morrison's ideas for approaching the conundrum of race in the twentieth-first
century.

Required Texts:
(Available at the Hunter College Bookstore)
1. James Baldwin, Collected Essays (Includes: Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time,
No Name in the Street, The Devil Finds Work and Other Essays) (1998)
2. James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953)
3. James Baldwin, Another Country (1962)
4. James Baldwin, Blues For Mister Charlie (1964)
5. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970)
6. Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977)
7. Toni Morrison, Beloved (1988)
8. Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992)
9. Toni Morrison, What Moves at the Margins: Selected Nonfiction (2008)
Requirements
Active Participation in every session
2 In-class presentations (approximately 20-25 minutes each). One presentation must be a close reading of a work
of fiction. A second presentation must be an engagement with a work of literary criticism.
3 Discussion questions per class (these questions must be printed and submitted at the beginning of each class)

Grading Breakdown:
25%: Literary Analysis In-Class Presentation
25%: Literary/Social Criticism In-Class Presentation
25%: Attendance and In-Class Participation
25%: Quality of Weekly Discussion Questions

Classroom behavior:

Student participation is required. Arrive to class prepared to work. Students should be respectful of the professor and their
classmates by talking when called upon, not disrupting classmates or the instructor, addressing issues and scholarship, and
referring to readings and academic arguments to support their statements. The professor encourages students to think
critically and use scholarly analysis in their oral and written assessments. Students should come to class prepared, having
read the readings and completed assignments on time. Students should be punctual and responsible.

Students are expected to stay awake in class. Do not use cell phones or laptops during class. All cell phones must be
turned off and put away during quizzes and examinations. Other electronic devices should be switched off during class,
unless a specific exception is made by the professor.

Attendance:

Students are expected to be in attendance to every session. You can be granted up to one absence without having your grade
effected. If you miss two of more classes you will be categorically incapable of scoring an A grade in this course:

2 or more absences = Your overall grade will be scored from an B+ (meaning the highest grade you can receive in
this course is a B+).
3 or more absences= Your overall grade will be scored from a C+ (meaning the highest grade you can receive in
this course is a B+).
4 or more absences= Automatic failure (Your start-grade will begin at D).

Statement of College Policy on Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is the presentation of someone elses ideas, words, or artistic, scientific, or technical work as ones own creation.
Using the ideas or work of another is permissible only when the original author is identified. Paraphrasing and
summarizing, as well as direct quotation, require the citation of original sources. Plagiarism may be intentional or
unintentional. Lack of dishonest intent does not necessarily absolve a student of responsibility for plagiarism.
PLAGIARISM WILL INCURE AN F GRADE.

It is the students responsibility to recognize the difference between statements that are common knowledge (which do not
require documentation) and restatements of the ideas of others. Paraphrasing, summaries, and direct quotations are
acceptable forms of restatement, as long as the source is cited. Students who are unsure of how and when to provide
documentation are advised to consult with their instructors. The Library has free guides designed to help students with
problems of documentation.

Meeting Schedule
*= Reading Available on course-blog and/or blackboard
CE = James Baldwin: Collected Essays

Week Date Activity /Reading

Week 1 Tuesday: Introductions
8/28

Friday: Cornel West, The Socratic, The Prophetic, and the Democratic (In-
8/31 Class)
Week 2 Tuesday: Cornel West, The Deep Democratic Tradition and Democracy Matters
9/4 Are Frightening in Our Times from Democracy Matters*

James Baldwin, In Search of a Majority in Collected Essays CE *

Friday: Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority in The Tyranny of the
9/7 Majority: Fundamental Fairness in a Representative Democracy *
Week 3 Tuesday: Cornel West, Race Matters (Chapters 1-3)
9/11

Friday: In-Class Screening:

9/14 James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
Week 4 Tuesday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues * and Going To Meet the
9/18 Man *

Literary Criticism:
Tracey Sherard in Sonny's Bebop: Baldwin's "Blues Text" as Intracultural
Critique in African American Review, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp.
691-705. *

James Tackach, "The Biblical foundation of James Baldwin's 'Sonny's

Blues'" in Renascence: 59.2 (2007): 109-118 *

Friday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (First Half)
9/21
Literary Criticism:
Michael Cobb, Pulpitic Publicity: James Baldwin and the Queer Uses of
Religious Words in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 7.2
(2001) 285-312 *

MWeek 5 Tuesday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, Go Tell It (Second Half)

9/25
Literary Criticism:
E. Patrick Johnson, Feeling the Spirit in the Dark *
Bryan R. Washington, Wrestling with The Love That Dare Not Speak Its
Name: John, Elisha, and the Master *

Friday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, Blues For Mister Charlie *

9/28
Literary Criticism:
Koritha Mitchell, James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings the Blues
for Mister Charlie in American Quarterly, Volume 64, Number 1, March
2012, pp. 33-60 *

Week 6 Tuesday: Primary Text(s): James Baldwin, Blues For Mister Charlie *
9/2 James Baldwin, The Uses of the Blues in Uncollected Writings *

Friday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Collected Essays
10/5
Literary Criticism:
TBA
Week 7 Tuesday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, Collected Essays (Selections TBA)
10/9

Friday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark

10/12 Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Excerpts)

Week 8 Tuesday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark

10/16

Friday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (first half)
10/19
Literary Criticism: TBA

Week 9 Tuesday: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (second half)

10/23 Literary Criticism: TBA

Friday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, Another Country (first half)

10/26 Literary Criticism: TBA

Week 10 Tuesday: Primary Text: James Baldwin, Another Country (second half)
10/30 Literary Criticism:

Friday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, What Moves at the Margins

11/2

Week 11 Tuesday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, What Moves at the Margins
11/6

Friday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, Beloved

11/9
Literary Criticism:
Sharon Holland, Bakulu Discourse: Bodies Made 'Flesh' in Toni
Morrison's Beloved in Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and Black
Subjectivity (Duke University Press, 2003).

Week 12 Tuesday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, Beloved

11/13
Literary Criticism:
Caroline Rody, Toni Morrison's Beloved: History, 'Rememory,' and a
Clamor for a Kiss, American Literary History 7.1 (Spring 1995): 92119

Friday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, Beloved

11/16 Literary Criticism: TBA
Week 13 Tuesday: Film Screening: Beloved
11/20

Friday: Film Screening: Beloved

11/27

Week 14 Friday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

11/28
Literary Criticism:
Linda Krumholz, "Dead Teachers: Rituals of Manhood and Rituals of
Reading in Song of Solomon in Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 39,
Number 3&4, Fall/Winter 1993, pp. 551-574 *

Week 15 Tuesday: Primary Text: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

12/4
Literary Criticism:
Deborah Guth, A Blessing and a Burden: The Relation to the Past in
Sula, Song of Solomon and Beloved in Modern Fiction Studies, Volume
39, Number 3&4, Fall/Winter 1993, pp. 575-596 *

Week 16 Tuesday:
Unfinished Business/Course Wrap Up
12/7

Unfinished Business/Course Wrap Up

Friday:
12/11