ENG 5053/ 6063 Topics in Literary Genres
African American Autobiography
Fall 2009: Tues 5:30-8:15 p.m.
Main Building 1.208
Dr. Joycelyn Moody
Office location: 2.306C Main
Office hours: Wednesdays 3-5 pm & by appt
Office phone: 210.458.6857
Email: joycelyn.moody@utsa.edu
Since racism’s most damaging insult is internal, to “self” as perception, it strikes me that,
especially for a black writer, the process of coming to the creation of a great work of art is
also a process that entails the re-creation and revision of the self.—Toi Derricotte, The
Black Notebooks (1997)
Course Description: The socioliterary influence of the institution of slavery has been apparent
since enslaved Africans first narrated their experiences of bondage. From the advent of slavery to
the present, life writing—a genre that includes captivity accounts, slave narratives, religious
confessions, travel diaries, memoirs, prison letters, and coming of age stories—has remained the
genre of choice for African Americans. Many texts that make up “the African American literary
canon” incorporate conventions of autobiography and self-representation, thus underscoring the
urgency and the irony of blacks as a marginalized people to express a collective racial identity, in
individual terms. This graduate seminar explores a central paradox in African American
autobiography from slavery to the present: blacks’ use of the nation’s most individualistic and
exclusive literary genre (the story of the individual self) to tell the collective story of an excluded
race. Not every assigned reading demonstrates that paradox, however. Consequently, we will
also read autobiographies that allow us to trace both rhetorical patterns and stylistic shifts in US
black life writing; to this end, the black personal narratives eamined in this seinar represent a
variety of autobiographical forms, occasionally hybridized in a single text.
Course Requirements:
 Regular, engage, and prepared attendance (two excused absences granted).
 Prompt written work; late work will be penalized per diem.
 Readings for each session should be thoroughly and thoughtfully read before due dates.
 Individual meeting with professor before Sept 15.
 Educational Autobiography (due Sept 8) & Final Self-Assessment (due Dec 11)
 Intermittent critical reading notebook (CRN) entries, 2 single-spaced pages, to be
collected in final portfolio on Dec 11.
 Collaborative oral discussion leadership with assigned colleague. Topics/dates must be
chosen by Sept 15.
 A 3-5 pp double-spaced formal "close reading" on a brief passage from an (assigned or
optional) autobiography of your choice, due Oct 20.
 Final project for 5053 students: Seminar conference paper (9-12 pp).
o Call for papers (cfp) selection due: Oct 27
o 150-300 word proposal/ abstract specifying topic, hypothesis, and metholodgy,
due: Nov 3
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o Bibliography of works consulted due: Nov 10
o Draft due: Dec 3
o Revised final version due: Dec 11
Final project for 6063 students: Seminar article draft (25-35 pp).
o Topic selection due: Oct 27
o 150-300 word proposal/ abstract specifying topic, hypothesis, and metholodgy,
due: Nov 3
o Bibliography of works consulted due: Nov 10
o Draft due: Dec 3
o Revised final version due: Dec 11
All written work should be typed in 12-point font with one-inch margins on all sides. Use
the current MLA style sheet to document sources for all citations.
All written work must be punctually submitted for successful completion of the seminar;
no written assignment is optional. “Incomplete” grades will be granted only in extreme
circumstances.
Students are expected to act on the highest ethics of academic honesty. Such conduct as
plagiarism, collusion to cheat, the use of another person’s research without appropriate
acknowledgement or attribution, or the misuse of previously prepared course material will not be
tolerated. If charges of academic dishonesty are found valid, a student may be reported to the
Department Chair for disciplinary probation, suspension, or expulsion. Adjudicated cases of
plagiarism will result in immediate failure of the entire course.
Assignment Details:
Educational Autobiography and Final Self-Assessment (pass-fail). The first writing
assignment should be 1-2-pages typed, single-spaced; it should give details of your personal
history as a student. Use it to clarify some of the academic and unique experiences that you bring
to the seminar, and also to outline the goals you have set for the course.
The final self-assessment essay should also consist of 1-2 typed, single-spaced pages.
This essay might be a narrative about your overall intellectual experience in this seminar—why
you took it, what problems and challenges it presented to you along the way, and how you
addressed them. Or it might focus specifically on your writing for the course, what you learned
from generating one or more particular required texts, what you learned about your strengths and
weaknesses as a scholar. Or it might enumerate critical insights you gained during the seminar.
Use this essay to reflect on your overall intellectual growth in the seminar.
Critical reading notebook (CRN) (25%). This assignment provides a chance to select the topics
you find most compelling and the space outside of class to reflect at length on those topics. So,
write your entries as your personal scholarly interests dictate. Although notebook entries are
required on assigned dates, you can move around the organization of the syllabus for your focal
points. A portfolio of the original (i.e., marked by professor) notebook entries will be graded as a
unit at the end of the term.
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Collaborative oral discussion leadership (10%). At the beginning of the semester, you will be
paired with a seminar colleague with whom you will select an assigned text and lead an hour of
class session. Together you will decide how to spend the time, what to ask the seminar
participants to contemplate, and how we will learn specific ideas or concepts you want to
highlight. This assignment is meant to provide an opportunity to tailor a seminar discussion
according to your mutual interests as well as to practice collaboration.
"Close reading" of a selected autobiographical passage (20%). This essay requires an indepth analysis of a literary passage of your choice, from an assigned text or another
autobiography by an African American author; the primary goal is to develop your skills in
textual analysis and interpretation. The labor should be intensive, meticulous, and rewarding.
You should examine your chosen passage for its historical frameworks, the author’s application
of particular literary conventions and influences, its traces of biographical information, and so
on. Once you have articulated such apparent observations, then you should move into more
idiosyncratic inferences to argue a concentrated thesis about the passage.
The Final Project assignment has five parts (45%). First, you must choose a topic and, if
enrolled for ENG 5053 credit, find and respond to a published CFP (pass-fail). Then you will
generate an original proposal about your topic, and write it as abstract that includes a proposed
title of the paper, an hypothesis (or tentative main claim), and a statement of the primary
methodology by which you will develop the argument of your paper (5%). Shortly thereafter,
you will submit an annotated bibliography composed of your revised title, a 100-word revised
hypothesis, and a list of 10-12 print and multimedia resources that you have consulted for
information on your topic (10%). The annotations can be single spaced; feel free to print on both
sides of the page. A complete draft of the final project (20%) will be read and comments offered
before the revised final version becomes due (10%).
*****
This course will undoubtedly challenge many of your values, attitudes, beliefs, and ideas.
You will need not only to come to class open-mindedly, but you will also need to approach your
reading assignments open-mindedly. I expect you to raise questions in class and to see me in my
office hours for further help if needed. It is your responsibility to contact me with any problems
or issues you feel are getting in the way of your learning.
Predictably, many of the course readings deal with controversial issues that may prove
difficult to discuss: racism, sadism, xenophobia, physical atrocities, and sexual violence. At
alternate points in the course, each of us will feel upset, discouraged, angry, distraught, proud,
relieved, ashamed, and guilty about issues raised in discussion and course texts. If we are brave
enough, we will engage in difficult, transformative discussions. Let me highlight one issue in
particular that the class will encounter: the word nigger, which appears in many course readings.
Given both the intense cultural weight and the sociopolitical history of this epithet, please refrain
from using it unless you are reading aloud from a course text. Obviously, our guiding principle is
to respect each other at all times.
Addenda. Often I will email you with updated assignments, downloaded resources, or Internet
links. Please plan to check your UTSA email account regularly.
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Please silence cell phone ringers before each class session. Please do not eat in class except
during announced breaks.
Course Calendar. Always subject to change. Additional readings will probably be assigned
during the semester. Assigned readings should be completed before each class period.
Introductions and Goals
Sept 1
Petition of Belinda to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1783
“Theme for English B,” by Langston Hughes
“Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid
Centering “Race” in the Classroom
Sept 8
DUE: Educational Autobiography
Readings:
 Beverly Daniel Tatum, “Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: 'The Application of
'Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom” (1992)
 Robert M. Sellers, et al. “Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity: A
Reconceptualization of African American Racial Identity” (1998)
 B. Marks, et al. “African American racial identity: A review of contemporary models and
measures.” Black Psychology. 4th ed. Ed. R. L. Jones. Hampton, VA: Cobb & Henry,
383-404. (2004)
 Robin J. Diangelo, “The Production of Whiteness in Education: Asian International
Students in a College Classroom” (2006)
Sept 14: Last day to meet individually with Prof Moody
Theorizing Autobiography
Sept 15
DUE: Last day to notify Prof Moody of selected oral presentation topic.
1-Hr Writing workshop directed by Melissa Thomas, Rivera Center Asst Director of Learning
Readings:
 David L. Dudley, Introduction, My father's shadow: intergenerational conflict in African
American men's autobiography (electronic resource, 1991)
 Kenneth Mostern, Chapter 2 (“African American Autobiography and the Field of
Autobiography Studies”), Autobiography and Black identity politics: racialization in
twentieth-century America (electronic resource, 1998)
 Paula Brush, “The Influence of Social Movements on Articulations of Race and Gender
in Black Women’s Autobiographies” (1999)
 Patricia Bauer, et al., “Representation of the Inner Self in Autobiography” (2003)
Antebellum Slave Narratives as Early Black Autobiography
Sept 22
1-Hr Research workshop directed by Melissa Thomas, Rivera Center Asst Director of Learning
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Readings:
 http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/hammon/hammon.html
 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
Sept 29
Collaborative Presentation:___________________________________________________
Reading:
 Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Thurs Oct 1
Due (optional): CLA Convention proposals
Postbellum Black Autobiography
Oct 6
Collaborative Presentation:__________________________________________________
Readings:
 Rosalyn Collings Eves, “A Recipe for Remembrance: Memory and Identity in AfricanAmerican Women’s Cookbooks”
 Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes
Becoming a New Negro
Oct 13
Collaborative Presentation:__________________________________________________
Readings:
 Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
 Selections from The William Wells Brown Reader
Oct 20
DUE: Close reading essay.
Readings:
 Ida B. Wells, Memphis Diary
 Paula Giddins, “Missing in Action: Ida B. Wells, the NAACP, and the Historical
Record.” Meridians 1.2 (2001): 1-17.
Race and Blackness at Midcentury
Oct 27
Collaborative Presentation:_________________________________________________
DUE: Call for papers (cfp) selection
Reading:
 James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
Mon Nov 2 Due (optional): a/b: Auto/Biography Studies submissions for a special issue on
African American life writing.
Post-Civil Rights Movement African American Autobiography
Nov 3
Collaborative Presentation:__________________________________________________
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DUE: Final Project proposal/ abstract
Reading:
 Jill Nelson, Volunteer Slavery
Nov 10
Collaborative Presentation:__________________________________________________
DUE: Final Project bibliography
Reading:
 McCall, Makes Me Wanna Holler
Post-Black? 21st-Century Race Demons
Nov 17
Collaborative Presentation:__________________________________________________
Readings:
 June Cross, Secret Daughter
 France Winddance Twine, “Transgressive Women and Transracial Mothers: White
Women and Critical Race Theory.” Meridians 1.2 (2001): 130-53.
Nov 24
Collaborative Presentation:__________________________________________________
Reading:
 John Francis, Planetwalker
Final Considerations: Postmodern Black Life “Writing”
Dec 1
Due (optional): COLFA Research Conference Application Submissions
Course Evaluations
Readings:
 John P. Bowles, “Adrian Piper as African American Artist”
 Marianetta Porter, “Memory and Oblivion”
 “Looking Back to Move Forward: Katrina’s Black Women Survivors Speak,” by
Elizabeth Murakami-Ramalho and Beth A. Durodoye (2009)
Thurs Dec 3, 5 p.m.
DUE: Complete drafts of final projects
Dec 8 University Study Day
Fri Dec 11, noon
DUE: Final projects & portfolios.
Seminar celebration! (location tba)
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