FAYETTEVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY Department of English and Foreign Language

ENGLISH 220-01 African-American Literature

Instructor: B. Harrington

Location: Butler 135

Phone: 672-1931

Office Hours: Wed. 10:00 - 4:00 Thur. 2:00

COURSE DESCRIPTION

African -American Literature is an exploration of the prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction of the African Diaspora. While examining multiple genres, both oral, written and cinematic, it also investigates the spiritual, historical, philosophical, political, and gender-racial forces that influenced the form and matter of this literature. It offers a revision not only of African-American texts of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it also provides the students with another way of viewing the traditional canon of American Literature. English 220 provides three credit hours. This course will not be developed along historical lines; rather the students will study the material from a perspective of genre.

TEXTBOOK: Gates, Henry Louis and Nellie McKay. THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. In accordance with the various modes of expression, recordings, guest lecturers, documentaries and commercial and independent films will be used.

COURSE OBJECTIVES By the end of the semester, students will have met specific objectives. Student will be able to do the following: A. Decode language used in the traditional sense to discuss African-American Literature. The following terms will acquire new connotations: minority, majority, canon, American, African-American Literature, white, black, race, culture, and myth.

B. Decode figurative speech used to characterize American Literature and apply the traditional figurative language to African-American Literature;

C. Construct a literary canon that is counter to that of the traditional American canon in that the old canon is based on a different cultural base; outdated references as opposed to postmodernist ones of the Africanist culture;

D. Compose definitions, informal and formal, for African-American Literature, in particular, and African-American aestheticism in general.

COMPETENCIES Students will demonstrate knowledge of the following, as recommended by the Department of Public Instruction and stated in "Guidelines and Competencies for Undergraduates in the English/Communication Skills Preparation Program": 2.2 Basic information concerning the English language: its structure, standards, and variations; 2.6 Various modes of discourse (narration, exposition, description, and persuasion) and their appropriate use in all areas of experience: personal, social, educational, business, and vocational; 2.7 Elements of literature and how these elements affect interpretation; 2.8 The genres common to oral, written, and visual expression.

This course will also develop knowledge and competencies consistent with the standards recommended by the National Council of Teachers of English. Specifically, students will be able to do the following: 1.1 Complete a specific language arts course of study;

2.6 Recognize the impact that culture, societal events and issues have on teachers, students, the English language arts curriculum, and education in general;

3.1.2 Demonstrate how reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and things are interrelated;

3.1.3 Recognize the impact of cultural, economic, political, and social environments upon language;

3.1.4 Show a respect for and an understanding of diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles;

3.1.5 Show an understanding of the evolution of English language and the historical influences on its various forms; 3.1.8 Show various purposes for which language is used;

3.2.2 Use writing, speaking and observing as major forms of inquiry, reflection, and expression;

3.2.5 Apply knowledge of language structure and conventions of creating and critiquing print and non-print texts;

3.3.1 Demonstrate how to respond to and interpret what is read in different ways;

3.3.2 Demonstrate how to discover and create meaning from texts;

3.3.3 Use a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts; 3.4.3 Demonstrate how written discourse can influence thought and action;

3.5.3 Show knowledge of a broad historical and contemporary spectrum of United States, British, and world literature, including:

3.5.1.1 works from a range of cultures;

3.5.1.2 works from a range of genres.

CONTENT

Week One Introduction of text and syllabus Focus: Mini Lecture: "What African-American Literature Isn't." Assignment: Diagnostic Essay: Students compose essay based on definition of African-American Literature.

Week Two Breaking the Code: Dictionary and literary handbook assignment (Holman's Handbook or Harper and Frye's Handbook) involving the re-definition of terms traditionally used to define African-Americans and their culture. Students use unabridged texts to search for definition and re-create their own definitions in the light of a more re-visioned text. Students will explore, analyze, and define slavery through slave narratives (Frederick Douglas).  Students exchange information in class and compose their new definitions outside of class.

Weeks Three and Four

Students view Spielberg's AMISTAD, a film about slave insurrection that provides demythification of slave history and images counter to those presented in Twain, Harris, and other American authors.

Assignment: Students explore traditional figurative language used to discuss literary and, to an extent, cinematic texts. In-class exercises will provide opportunity to apply terms such as METAPHOR, SIMILE, IMAGERY, SYMBOL, TROPE, ALLUSION, IRONY, PARADOX, GENRE, AND OXYMORON to the film. Students submit personal slave narratives due at midterm. Students must also submit an annotated bibliography of slave narratives that have been made into films..

Weeks- -Five and Six

Students explore the literature of the vernacular with an emphasis on oral forms. Dr. Harrington, musician and departmental member, will offer two mini-lectures on the aesthetics of the gospel, the spiritual, and the hymn as they reveal the slave idiom.

Assignment: Students must have read the "Preface" and the "Introduction." Students, using MLA format, will compose an annotated bibliography on the musical form or musician of their choice. Annotation is limited to one to three sentences.

*All introductions to the historical periods and the relevant authors must be read by the students. Class participation grade is connected to one's ability to answer questions about text materials.

Week-- Seven

Students finalize exploration of music genres of the African-American musical literary. Dr. T. Hennessey, along with professorial notes from Mr. Malachi Sharpe, noted local jazz musician, will explore the realm of jazz during the early twentieth centuries

Week-Eight

Students explore the genre of the slave narrative from the non-traditional approach. Elements of gender, class, and skin color weigh far more heavily than the questions traditionally posed in research of this genre. Excerpts from the following writers were chosen: EQUIANO, FREDERICK DOUGLAS, BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, W.E.B. DUBOIS, and HARRIET JACOBS.

MIDTERM ASSIGNMENT: Students will complete a writing assignment in class that discusses African-American Literature as the literature of resistance; one class session will discuss the format that this essay takes. The essay must include research and class materials.

Weeks-Nine and Ten

The feminist experience in slavery is discussed using texts from Jacobs' INCIDENTS... and Toni Morrison's BELOVED. The focus is on the uniqueness of the female experience; in Jacob's case, the emphasis is black racism and the caste system, symbolized through the trope of the "tragic mulatto"; in excerpts from Morrison's BELOVED, the emphasis is on genre format and magic realism and the surreal. A video of Morrison discussing her research for BELOVED will be shown.

Weeks-- Eleven and Twelve

Excerpts from Harriet Wilson's OUR NIG, Chesnutt's "The Wife of His Youth" and Ida B. Well's "Essays" meld the themes of the body as the ultimate sign undergirding the black literary aesthetic.

Assignment: Students view a documentary on Madam C.J. Walker, which provides political, historical, and sociological information for the emphasis on body politics as it relates to the black American after slavery in American culture. Students will be given excerpts from the essays of Dr.Stanley Gilman and Dr.Terry Eagleton, scholars of western aesthetics.

Weeks-Twelve and Thirteen

William Greaves' documentary on the Harlem Renaissance opens this segment of the course. To begin this section, students will read Hughes's essay defining the "racial mountain." The emphasis in this course will be on cultural revolution, an introduction to modernism for some critics and postmodernism for others.

Dr. L. Barlow, a scholar in the black poetics, will discuss form and content of black poetry. Dr. Barlow will provide a cursory exploration of the works of Phyllis Wheatley and Jupiter Hammon and some of Dunbar's dialect work. Dr. Barlow, a Keats scholar, will collapse the works of Cullen, Tolson, and Dunbar into a poetic melange, emphasizing the African and American sensibilities. Dr. Barlow has offered the only course at this University which focused solely on the black poetic aesthetic and will provide the depth and comprehensiveness that this genre calls forth. .

Weeks-- Fourteen and Fifteen

Students will read Locke's "The New Negro." A discussion of this essay will involve a pre-lecture on Houston Baker's remarks about the African-American aesthetic and postmodernism.

EVALUATION

Class participation counts for ten percent of the student's grade. The written assignments done outside of class are twenty percent; the midterm and final constitute thirty-five percent each. All work will be graded in accordance with standards established and published by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Fayetteville State University. All work should be one a computer or word processor, free of grammatical errors, and submitted on time. Late assignments will have points deducted from them. (MLA Style is to be used for all work.)

ATTENDANCE POLICY

The policy for this class is in accordance with that of the University Handbook. Students should refer to this handbook and follow accordingly