English 154/Women’s Studies 154
Memory in African-American Literature
Professor Jeannine King
jmking@stmarys-ca.edu
Lecture:
Sichel 101
TTH 11:20-12:50
Office:
Dante 314, x4760
Office hours: TTH 1:30-2:30
Course Description
The South Africa Freedom Charter states: “our struggle is that of memory against
forgetting.” In North America, both colonial and post-Revolutionary visions of progress
were informed by the desire for freedom from the past. In contrast, for AfricanAmericans, the temporal rupture of slavery made their sense of history and progress more
complex: a struggle of memory against forgetting, voice against silence. In this course, as
we consider the literature of African-Americans, we will examine the artistic expression
of slavery, emancipation and modernity as a site of this struggle.
Texts:
Morrison, Toni. Beloved (1987)
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl (1861)
Toomer, Jean. Cane (1923)
Wright, Richard. Native Son (1940)
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)
Jones, Gayl. Corredigora (1975)
Packer, ZZ. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2003)
Course Reader
Learning Goals
 Students will read and interpret canonical texts of African American literature
ranging from the 19th to the 21st century
 Students will learn how to analyze the intersections of race, gender, class and
sexuality in literature and literary criticism
 In written work and class discussion, students will show the relationships between
literary texts and their historical, political and/or social contexts
 Students will use textual analysis of form and meaning to explore larger questions
of power, inequality and resistance
 Students will learn how to integrate the terminology of literary analysis and
critical race theory
Requirements
 Active class participation
 Prospectus for each essay
2
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Essay
Research paper
Eight one- page “talking” papers
Group presentation
Critical film analysis
Course policies
 All assignments must by typed and double-spaced on 8-1/2" x 11" paper. Please
include page numbers. For full credit, turn in all previous work (first draft, peer
editors’ comments) with the final draft stapled on top.
 Attendance: If you are absent more than 3 times, your participation grade will be
lowered. I will count five late arrivals as one absence.
 Late paper policy: All papers must be turned in at the beginning of class. If you
are late, so is the assignment. The late penalty is 1/3 of a grade off (e.g. from B to
B-) for every day late. Since this is an intensive course, it is strongly
recommended that you keep up with the work.
Grading
 Research paper (includes prospectus): 40%; Short paper (includes prospectus):
30%; Participation (includes group-led discussion): 20%; Talking papers and
short responses: 10%
 Plagiarism on one assignment will result in an F for the entire course. If you are
not sure what constitutes plagiarism, see the SMC student handbook.
All major assignments must be submitted to receive a passing grade for the course.
3
COURSE SCHEDULE
Neo-slave Narratives
I’ll not ask for the impossible;
one learns to walk by walking.
In time I’ll forget this empty brimming,
I may laugh again at
a bird, perhaps, chucking the nest—
but it will not be happiness,
for I have known that
from “Demeter Mourning” in Mother Love: poems, Rita Dove (1995)
Voyage through death/ voyage whose chartings are unlove.
from “Middle Passage” in A Ballad of Remembrance, Robert Hayden (1962)
T.8.29
Introduction to the course
TH.8.31
Morrison, Toni. Beloved (to 133)
Discussion Question
T.9.5
Beloved (134-end)
Talking Paper
TH.9.7
Beloved
“Slavery and Social Death” Orlando Patterson
Steven Biko, “On Death”
Group Presentation
T.9.12
Beloved
Documentary
Slave Narratives
i am outside of
history. i wish
i had some peanuts, it
looks hungry there in
its cage
i am inside of
history, its
4
hungrier than i
thot
“Dualism” in Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone, Ishmael Reed (1970)
TH.9.14
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl
Discussion Question
T.9.19
Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl
Hazel Carby, “Slave and Mistress” from Reconstructing Womanhood
Talking Paper
TH.9.21
Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl
Group Presentation
Migration: Between past and present
Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks
from “Seventh Street,” in Cane, Jean Toomer (1923)
T.9.26
Toomer, Jean. Cane
Discussion Question
TH.9.28
Cane
Talking Paper
Griffin, Farah Jasmine, excerpt from Who Set You Flowin’?
T.10.3
Cane
Group Presentation
Prospectus #1 due
Masculinity
I am eager to burn
this threadbare masculinity
this perpetual black suit
I have outgrown.
from “Heavy Breathing,” in Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry, Essex Hemphill (1992)
5
T.10.10
Wright, Richard. Native Son
Talking Paper
TH.10.12
Native Son
Peer-editing Paper #1
T.10.17
Native Son
Ellis Cose. “A Group Apart” in The Envy of the World
Group Presentation
Memory, Gender and the Quest
We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made eternally to weep.
from “From the Dark Tower,” in Copper Sun, Countee Cullen (1927)
TH.10.19
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God
Discussion Question
Final Draft Due: Paper #1
T.10.24
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Group Presentation
TH.10.26
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Film
Memory and Political Movement
Calling black people
Calling all black people, man woman child
Wherever you are, calling you, urgent, come in
Black people, come in, wherever you are, urgent, calling
you, calling all black people
calling all black people, come in, black people, come
on in.
from “SOS,” in Black Magic, Amiri Baraka (1969)
6
T.10.31
X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Discussion Question
TH.11.2
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Poetry of the Black Arts Movement
Talking Paper
T.11.7
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Group Presentation
Memory and the Body
I am a black woman
the music of my song
some sweet arpeggio of tears
is written in a minor key
and I
can be heard humming in the night
Can be heard
Humming
in the night.
from “I Am a Black Woman,” in I Am A Black Woman, Mari Evans (1970)
TH.11.9
Jones, Gayl. Corregidora
Discussion Question
T.11.14
Corregidora
Angela Davis, “I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama”: Ideology, Sexuality and Domesticity”
Talking Paper
TH.11.16
Corredigora
Group Presentation
Memory, Love and Forgiveness
It is the thickest blood on this planet
The feet that slip
That slide in spilled lakes of black blood
On back roads marked with rusted dead-end signs
They don’t fit into any shoes
Not Nikes
7
Not Reeboks
from Blood, Sarah Jones
T.11.21
Packer, ZZ. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Talking Paper
TH.11.23
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
T.11.28
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Group Presentation
TH.11.30
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Peer-editing: Paper #2