Joe Calabrese
FH 110c calabj@unr.edu
Hours: see website (http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/calabj/ )
TEXTS:
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Native Son, Wright: 006083756X
Autobiography Malcolm X: 0345350685
When the Emperor was Divine, Otsuka: 0385721811
Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri: 9780307278258
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz: 9781594483295
The Puttermesser Papers, Ozick: 0679777393
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Alexie: 0316013684
Baseball in April and other Stories, Soto: 0152025677
(Additions to reading TBA)
English 345 Capstone: Literature of Ethnic Minorities
Write what should not be forgotten. While you are experimenting, do not remain
content with the surface of things. Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to
penetrate the mystery of their origin.
Isabel Allende
When the book comes out it may hurt you -- but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me
first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.
James Baldwin
Blues, spirituals, and folk tales recounted from mouth to mouth; the whispered
words of a black mother to her black daughter on ways of men, to confidential wisdom of
a black father to his son; the swapping of sex experiences on street corners from boy to
boy in the deepest vernacular, work songs sung under blazing suns—all these formed
the channels through which racial wisdom flowed.
Richard Wright
A Problem
According to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “there is no female mind. The brain is not
an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver.” Let’s say Gilman had
something by the tail there. The mind is the mind, regardless of its owner’s
gender. Can we put this to use in considering ethnic literature? Is there such a
thing? Maybe literature is literature—it’s good, indifferent, or bad. If we accept
this, we might be in for a long semester, having decided on the first day that the
reading has no specific identity.
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If we claim that ethic literature is an actual category, a host of questions
arise, the key one being what defines this category. As we try to answer,
someone might wonder if French or Spanish or Persian writing includes an ethnic
branch. This leads someone else to wonder if ethnic writing always occupies a
place within a sub-culture. Arguments about status might quickly follow.
Maybe we should return to the search for a definitive trait, a key to
identifying literature as ethnic, and we really have to undertake the search since
the term “ethnic literature” defines our course of study. Here are several
approaches:
a. It’s whatever ethnic writers produce.
b. It’s literature about ethnic groups
c. It’s a and b: writing by and about ethnic groups
To take them in turn, (a) has no reference to content, and it also categorizes the
work before the author puts pen to page. (b) is so broad that a screed like
“Almond Eyes,” which is about Chinese in America, gets included even though a
white person wrote it as an attack on Chinese living in the U.S. (c) nails two
features together, and in the process repeats the problems of (a) and (b).
Alternatively, we might look at the epigraphs above. Putting aside genre
questions, we can consider these briefly. Allende wants writers to penetrate
surfaces. That applies to readers, too. If the writer sees into the world, not merely
across its appearances, we can read the inner world of each tale. Why? What
can we expect there? Baldwin suggests that his work tells us about us, that in
facing himself he sees us as well. That claim really matters in literature that
seems to be about “others,” minorities living at some remove from a majority
culture. In short, these readings offer a route toward an ancient ideal: know
yourself. Wright refers to “racial wisdom,” a problematic term which suggests, for
me, something at once collective and isolated. Can I, coming from a different
cultural background, grasp anything of this wisdom? If the answer is no, the
course is wasted, so I’m going with the affirmative.
Reading about a young Indian woman from a past century tells us about
ourselves. The struggle of a Japanese American family imprisoned without trial
somehow illuminates the universal struggle for a sense of identity. Even the story
of a monstrous character like Bigger Thomas offers us something of value.
These stories help me to imagine the humanity of characters far removed from
my immediate world. Like all literature, these stories offer a wider experience of
the world.
We can defer more elaborate answers until we’ve read our texts. I’m
inclined to do that. With 8 or so texts to consider, we might actually identify
recurrent themes such as the quality of lives positioned according to race, or
white supremacy as a cultural standard, or the struggle to “blend in” while
preserving a heritage. If we delay an answer, we might also read texts openly,
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letting them say what they will, with little interference from expectations about our
category.
Coursework (read carefully)
90% of your grade depends on your writing. We will do several short papers
focused on texts under discussion and one final paper with a bit more latitude so
that you can pursue an approach that draws on your particular studies at UNR.
For this to work, you will have to make a proposal and discuss it with me.
Grade breakdown:
Short Papers: 75%
Final Paper: 15%
Participation: 10% 1
NOTE: If you fail to do even one paper, you earn an F in the course.
Policies in general
See the website, under policies, for details. You are responsible for knowing
these things. I will allow any student three absences, no excuse needed, and no
ill effect on your grade. Beyond that, I reserve the right to lower your grade—all
the way down. Nobody who whines or derides texts or classmates will do well
here. But you know that. If you need particular accommodations, tell me and I’ll
work with you.
Other Policies
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Late essays may be accepted. I’m not inflexible but be careful.
If you miss a class, find out from a classmate what we did. Do not ask
me.
 Do not email me essays or other class work without prior permission.
 Feel free to use my office hours whenever you want to talk about the
class. If posted hours don’t work for you, I’ll schedule a time that does.
 Read the policy page on the class website: www.unr.edu/homepage/calabj
Enjoy the class. Take responsibility for that.
 The homepage for 345 is
http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/calabj/345/345homepage.html
Check it for the reading schedule and for paper prompts and any additional
readings I may assign.
We’ll talk about format for these discussions early in the semester, and we’ll adjust the
format as needed.
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