Georgetown University
English 254-01 (Spring 2012)
Reading Invisible Man
Professor Brian Hochman
email: bh296@georgetown.edu
office: New North 324 (T 3:30-5:30)
(above: Ralph Ellison)
course website: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/engl-254-01-spring2012/
This course considers Ralph Ellison’s classic 1952 novel Invisible Man within and against the literary,
philosophical, and vernacular traditions that influenced its composition. Not only will we read Ellison’s
writings (both fiction and non-fiction) in detail, we will also examine many of the cultural sources on which
Invisible Man draws: music by Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Rushing, and Charlie Parker; fiction by Fyodor
Dostoevsky, Richard Wright, Mark Twain, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner; and
writings by Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and T.S. Eliot—among many others. We will have
two main goals throughout the course of the semester: first, to understand Ellison’s complex vision of the
African American experience; second, to understand the centrality of that experience to modern American
life and art.
Required Texts (available at the Georgetown Bookstore):
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (Vintage)
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground and The Double (Penguin)
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Bedford/St. Martins)
Richard Wright, Native Son (Harper Perennial)
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bedford/St. Martins)
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin)
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (Scribner)
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (Vintage)
selected stories/essays – I will provide these on our course website (marked by [*] below)
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Class Policies/Requirements
(above: Jeff Wall, After ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph Ellison, The Prologue, 1999-2000)
Grading and Attendance:
The majority of your grade for this course (40%) is based on a 12-15 page paper due during exam
period. You are also expected to produce five online blog posts in response to the reading (25%), as well as a
3-4 page abstract for the final paper (15%). The remaining 20% of your grade is based on class
participation—this includes regular attendance, as well as frequent and thoughtful contribution to class
discussion. All absences should be excused. Missing more than three classes throughout the semester will
seriously jeopardize your participation grade; if you miss more than five, you should expect to fail the course.
For more on these requirements, see the “Writing” section below.
General Expectations:
1. Come to class prepared to address all of the meeting’s readings. This means bringing the relevant
texts with you. Keeping up with the syllabus is absolutely essential. There is a good deal of reading required
in this course, so be warned: unread pages can pile up very, very quickly.
2. Check the class blog regularly (https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/engl-254-01spring2012/) so that you can keep up with announcements, download readings and media files, and post (and
read) online responses to the texts on our syllabus. The blog will serve as our virtual classroom throughout
the semester. Bookmark it! I want it to “speak for you,” on every possible frequency.
3. Meet with me, in office hours or otherwise, to discuss your writing and your final paper. As listed
above, my office hours are held on Tuesdays, 3:30-5:30, in New North 324. I’m also available by email
appointment if need be.
4. Post or email your assignments on time. Your blog postings, your abstract, your final essay—in
all cases, late work is not acceptable. My policy is a simple one: for every day a post or a paper is late, 1/3
of a letter grade will be deducted. Exceptions may be made in documented cases of personal or familial
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hardship (severe illnesses, family emergencies, etc.). But please take note: the pressures of other exams,
papers, or extracurricular activities are not an acceptable excuse for lateness. Plan now to structure your time
wisely—and please don’t hesitate to take advantage of my office hours to help you work on assignments in
advance of their due dates.
Writing:
1. Blog Postings: You are expected to post online responses to course reading five times
throughout the semester. Once enrollment settles, I will divide the class into groups to designate when you’ll
be responsible for posting. Either way, your post should be visible on the course website by 10:00 AM
on the day it is due. Your contributions to the class blog are meant to be informal (two or three solid
paragraphs, at most), but they should also reflect clear writing and careful thinking. Your posts can respond
to the reading in whatever way you see fit, or they might respond directly to other blog posts. What about
the reading struck you? What image, sequence, theme, problem, or issue seemed most important and why?
These are a few questions to think about when you start out, but I can imagine many others. Ideally, though,
your blog postings will help propel class discussion and provide potential fodder for your final papers.
2. Paper Abstract: due 4/24, 3-4 pages (typed, double-spaced, 12-point font). In preparation for
your final paper, you are expected to produce a 3-4 page essay abstract that clearly outlines your topic, your
thesis, and a few potential points of comparison between the two texts you’ve chosen to consider. (For more
on the final paper, see #3 below…) At the end of the abstract, you should also list 4-5 secondary sources
that you plan to consult in preparation for the paper. We’ll go over how to search for and use secondary
sources in class; as always, though, I’m happy to suggest potential articles or books to peruse if you need help
doing so.
3. Final Paper: due 5/9, 12-15 pages (typed, double-spaced, 12-point font). Your final paper will
consist of an extended comparative analysis of Invisible Man with one or two of the texts on our syllabus. You
may write on whatever topic that you wish, and whatever texts that you see fit—my only stipulations are that
you meet with me to discuss your topic beforehand, and that you consult 4-5 secondary sources in
preparation for the writing process. I’ll of course be available throughout the semester to help you hone your
ideas, and to help you determine the best way to go about executing them.
Plagiarism and Academic Honesty:
The Georgetown University Honor Code—which includes a detailed definition of plagiarism—can
be found on the GU website at http://gervaseprograms.georgetown.edu/honor/system/53377.html. In
short, “Plagiarism is the act of passing off as one’s own the ideas or writings of another. While different
academic disciplines have different modes for attributing credit, all recognize and value the contributions of
individuals to the general corpus of knowledge and expertise. Students are responsible for educating
themselves as to the proper mode of attributing credit in any course or field….[T]hree simple conventions are
presented for when you must provide a reference: 1) If you use someone else's ideas, you should cite the
source; 2) If the way in which you are using the source is unclear, make it clear; 3) If you received specific
help from someone in writing the paper, acknowledge it….Faculty may use various methods to assess the
originality of students' work. For example, faculty may submit a student's work to electronic search engines,
including turnitin.com, a service to which the Honor Council and the Provost subscribe. Note that
plagiarism can be said to have occurred without any affirmative showing that a student’s use of another’s
work was intentional.”
I follow Georgetown’s guidelines for plagiarism. Depending on the case, you will receive a zero on the
assignment, fail the course, and possibly receive further disciplinary action. If you have any uncertainty about
the meaning of plagiarism, please be sure to discuss it with me.
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Schedule of Readings
(above: Louis Armstrong)
Th Jan 12
Class Introduction
Lower Frequencies (I)
Tu Jan 17
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952), 1-150 (including the Prologue!!)
Louis Armstrong, “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” (listen [*])
Th Jan 19
Ellison, Invisible Man, 151-294
Jimmy Rushing, “Harvard Blues,” “Good Morning Blues” (listen [*])
Tu Jan 24
Ellison, Invisible Man, 295-461
Charlie Parker, “Koko,” “Ornithology” (listen [*])
Th Jan 26
Ellison, Invisible Man, 462-end
The Underground: Literary Sources, Black and White
Tu Jan 31
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1864)
Th Feb 2
Richard Wright, “The Man Who Lived Underground” (1942) [*]
Links and Chains: Black Boys, Native Sons, Invisible Men
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Tu Feb 7
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave,
Written By Himself (1845)
Th Feb 9
Richard Wright, Native Son (1940), 1-93
Tu Feb 14
Wright, Native Son, 94-270
Th Feb 16
Wright, Native Son, 271-end
Ellison, “The World and the Jug” [*]
Ralph Waldo: What’s In A Name?
Tu Feb 21
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” “The American Scholar” [*]
Ellison, “Hidden Name and Complex Fate” [*]
American Gothic
Th Feb 23
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “William Wilson,” “The Man of the
Crowd” [*]
The Blackness of Blackness
Tu Feb 28
Herman Melville, Benito Cereno (1855) [*]
Th Mar 1
Melville, Benito Cereno, continued
Ellison, “What America Would Be Like Without Blacks” [*]
Rafts of Hope
Tu Mar 13
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), 43-184 (up to Ch. 24)
Th Mar 15
Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 184-end
Ellison, “Twentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity” [*]
Autobiography, Fiction, Modernism
Tu Mar 20
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), 1-108
Th Mar 22
Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 109-187
Tu Mar 27
Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 188-end
The Morality of Technique
Th Mar 29
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926), 1-71
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Tu Apr 3
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, 72-end
Ellison, “The Art of Fiction,” “Society, Morality, and the Novel” [*]
Th Apr 5
NO CLASS (EASTER BREAK)
Race, Memory, History
Tu Apr 10
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1936), 1-140
Th Apr 12
NO CLASS (AWAY AT CONFERENCE)
Tu Apr 17
Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!, 141-end
Lower Frequencies (II)
Th Apr 19
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952), re-read
Tu Apr 24
Ellison, Invisible Man, re-read
ABSTRACT DUE
Th Apr 26
Class Wrap-Up
FINAL PAPER DUE WEDNESDAY, MAY 9