Working syllabus: Winter 2006
ENG 363U: FROM CIVIL WAR TO CIVIL RIGHTS
Sue Danielson, MW 12-2, ext. 3569, daniels@pdx.edu
Office hours Weds 2-4 or by appointment
Eng 363U asks you to engage with the ways a variety of cultural texts [short stories,
novels, poems, films, essays] explore and challenge the dominant ways in which we
understand the period 1865-1965 in the United States with respect to the questions of
citizenship and race relations. Almost all the readings are on line; they are either located
on ereserves or at the web pages that I have included below. Those that are not will be
handed out in class. I will also try to have a collection of the texts in the reserve area of
the library. You are expected to buy only two books:
Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time
Brown, Rosellen. Half a Heart
Assignments: 3 papers (15% each), one mid-term(20%), one final course reflection
(20%). We will also do in class writing that I will collect and use as part of attendance
records. These in class writings will not be graded. (15%)
Week 1 - Conceptualizing Citizenship
Monday – Introduction to Class, Syllabus, Each other and Projects
In class focus: qualifications and attributes of United States citizenship
Assignments: Fairclough, Adam. “The Failure of Reconstruction and the Triumph of
White Supremacy” from Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000. Viking
Press, 2001. pages 1-22. on line at ereserves
Morrison, Toni. “Lecture 1” Playing in the Dark on line at ereserves
www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2769
Wednesday – “Reconstruction: The Second Civil War II” – PBS video
Assignment: Paper #1 [2-4 pages] due Monday of Week 2
1. After reading these essays and viewing this program, what for you are the main
attributes of freedom and citizenship at this time.
2. What images stay with you from the readings or the film? Why were they
important to you?
Week 2 – Responses to Emancipation
Monday: Assignment of short paper #1 due
Douglass, Frederick.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo.
Wednesday: Alcott, Louisa May. “The Brothers.” On line at ereserves
Harper, Francis.
Melville, Herman.
Whitman, Walt.
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Week 3 – Reconstruction vs. Redemption and Myth of the Lost Cause
Monday: Read one of these two pieces and come to class prepared to discuss the ways
in which the worlds of African Americans and “whites” are represented.
1. Dixon, Thomas – The Leopard’s Spots: A Romance of the White Man’s Burden,
excerpt on line at http://docsouth.unc.edu/dixonleopard/leopard.html#ill7, then scroll
down to Tom Camp 364 and read that section
2. Page, Thomas Nelson. http://docsouth.unc.edu/pageolevir/page.html, go to “Marse
Chan: A Tale of Old Virginia.”
Everyone should read the following two pieces.
Plessy vs Ferguson: http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/USA/PlessyFerguson.html
and http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/33.htm
Wednesday: Chesnutt, Charles. From The Conjure Woman read “The Goophered
Grapevine” http://docsouth.unc.edu/chesnuttconjure/conjure.html [for extra fun and
insight you might want to read “Hot Foot Hannibal” to prepare for Dreiser’s “Nigger
Jeff” http://www.toptags.com/aama/books/book19.htm
Week 4 – Cultural Aspects of Segregation
Monday: To be more fully prepared for this viewing read the web pages below and the
chapter by Grace Hale on ereserves.
Excerpt from “Birth of a Nation” – to be shown in class
http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/episodes/birthofanation.html
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/1204/bnation.htm
Hale, Grace Elizabeth. Making Whiteness: the Culture of Segregation in the South, 18901940. “Deadly Amusements: Spectacle Lynchings and the Contradictions of Segregation
as Culture.” On line at ereserves
Wednesday: Dreiser, Theodore. “Nigger Jeff” on ereserves
Dunbar, Paul Lawrence. “We Wear the Mask”
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw8.html
Wright, Richard. “Bright and Morning Star” on ereserves
Week 5 - Assimilation, Accommodation, and Separatism
Monday: Mid-Term Exam – This mid-term will take one hour and will ask questions,
both identification and essay, that ask you to think critically about the works we have
been reading so far this quarter. While the identifications are “factual”, the essay
questions ask you to take a position and support it from your reading of the texts; in other
words, there are no “right” answers but any answer must have textual and rational
support. You may bring your notes to class but no computers or ipods.
Chesnutt: “The Wife of His Youth”
Wednesday: Washington – Atlanta Compromise, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/88.
Dubois – Souls of Black Folk, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccernew2?id=DubSoul.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&t
ag=public&part=1&division=div1 - chapter 1
Garvey, Marcus. http://www.africawithin.com/garvey/garvey_fundamentals.htm
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Week 6 – Negotiating Legacies I
Monday: Everyone read Hughes, Langston. “Cora Unashamed”, “The Blues I’m
Playing”, “Father and Son”, “I,too”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/cora/works.html
And “Dig and Be Dug” – on line at ereserves
Wednesday: Read Welty and Faulkner– Paper #2: Write a 3-5 page comparison
between some aspect (character, setting, style) of one of the Hughes short stories and that
same aspect in either the Welty or Faulkner story. Due next Monday (Week 7)
Welty, Eudora. “A Worn Path“http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/ew_path.html
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily”
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/wf_rose.html
Week 7 – Negotiating Legacies II
Monday: Paper #2 due
Brown, Rosellen. Half a Heart, chapters 1-4
Wednesday: Individuals should meet with me this week to discuss paper revisions,
issues that have come up for them so far in class, or the topic for the third short paper. An
oral project and 1 page reflection may be substituted for your third short paper. If you
have an idea for such a project, you must let me know this week and discuss your
approach. Oral projects should be no more than 15 minutes and include analysis as well
as information. Each oral project must include by a one page reflection on how the
project was received by the class.
Week 8 - Cold War and Civil Rights
Monday: Baldwin, James - Fire Next Time
Brown vs. the Board of Education
http://www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html
Civil Rights Act of 1964
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/1964_civil_rights_act.htm
Wednesday: “Boycott” – and article – class handout
Week 9 - From Non-Violence to Black Power
Monday: Carmicheal, Stokely.
King, Martin Luther. Letter from Birmingham Jail
Fairclough, Adam. “The Civil Rights Movement, 1960-63” – class handout
Wednesday: Brown, Rosellen. Half a Heart, chapters 5-8
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Week 10 – Literature and Social Movements
Monday: Brown, Rosellen. Half a Heart, finish
Wednesday: Paper #3 due – for this final paper please pick one of the following tiny
topics and explore their significance in at least two of the works we read weeks 9 and 10:
Letters
Money
Community/Individual
Power
Oral presentations
Take Home Final due Monday of Finals Week at noon in my office: Course
Reflection Essay [6 pages]: If you have kept up with your reading and your assignments
this reflection should not be time consuming. Remember to ask yourself “What makes me
think so?” In other words, be specific as possible. I would like you to sit with your
readings, in class and out of class papers to see:
1. If your understanding of the “citizen” has undergone any change over the course
of the quarter. Discuss specifically
2. If you can identify ways in which one of the following images or representations
has changed and/or remained the same over the course of your reading. Pick one
of the following categories and analyze the way in which some aspect of this
category is represented in literature, essay, or film in three texts, one from weeks
1-3, one from weeks 4-7, and one from weeks 8-10.
Whiteness
Education
Family
Law
Freedom
Blackness
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