History 2412/ ASRC 2307
The White Image in the Black Mind
Meeting Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:55-4:10
Spring Semester 2014
Goldwin Smith Hall 158
Instructor: Prof. Sandra E. Greene
Office Hours: 1:15-2:00 M&W
by appt.
Office: Mc Graw 303
Office Phone: 5-4124
E-MAIL: seg6@cornell.edu
Course Description:
Much has been written about European images of Black men and women and their
cultural practices (whether they were African or in the African Diaspora) during the
18th, 19th and 20th centuries, but how did Africans view Europeans during these
periods? How did these images influence the ways Africans and Blacks in the Diaspora
saw themselves and how did these images change over time?
These questions and others will be explored in this course by examining a variety of
historical, literary and social science texts. Particular attention is given to the African
American and African experience in West Africa, but it will also explore the images of
Europeans held by other peoples of color in East and Southeast Asia.
Texts: All are on reserve in Uris Library
Books:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Mongo Beti, Poor Christ of Bomba
Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguous Adventure
Mia Bay, The White Image in the Black Mind
Karen Kelskey, Women on the Verge
David Roediger, Black on White: Black Writers on What it Means to be White
Custom Text
Course Organization
As a seminar, the course is organized with the idea that everyone will take active
participation in the course.
This kind of participation on the part everyone is essential. The instructor will assume
that everyone has done the reading for the course. Students can be expected to be called
on at anytime. So come prepared.
Course Requirements
1. THREE 7-8 page essays on each of the three sections of the course....................60%
2. Weekly 1-2 page response papers/ notes NOT GRADED - SIMPLY DUE…….20%
Writing up your notes/thoughts is designed to help you write the longer 7-8 page
essays. You may draw directly from these short 1-2 page essays in writing your
longer essays.
NOTE ON PLAGARISM: Plagiarism is misrepresenting somebody else's intellectual
work - ideas, information, writing, thinking - as your own. In other words, it is a
misuse of source material. Whether intentional or unintentional, plagiarism is a
serious violation of Cornell's Code of Academic Integrity. It is available as a
booklet from all college advising offices and online at
http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html. Every student is responsible for
reading and abiding by the rules in the Code.
3.
Attendance and Class participation........................…………………....…......20%
NOTE ON COMPUTER USE: No computers of any kind will be allowed in class
during class discussion sessions. Bring hard copies of the reading to be discussed that day to
class.
NOTE: More than four absences (including ones for illness) will result in a drop of a
letter grade from your final grade for the course
NOTE: Late papers will not be accepted.
Weekly Readings and Discussions:
SECTION ONE: The White Image in the African American Mind
January 22 (Wed.): Introduction to Course/ Background to the Readings
January 27 (Mon.): Film- Ethnic Notions
Musings: From the Era of Slavery to 1914
January 29 (Wed.): The Antebellum Period
Readings:
1. Custom Text: Frazier Afro-American History: Primary Sources(1970, 1st ed.):
pp. 17-19, 33-35, 61-63.
2. Bay: pp. 13-22, 71-87.
3. Roediger: pp. 54-55 David Walker, 1830)
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pp. 274-277 (Frederick Douglass, 1845)
pp. , 58-66 (Ethiop, 1860)
pp. 278-283 (Harriet Jacobs, 1861)
pp. 336-337 (Harriet Jacobs, 1861)
February 3 (Mon.): After Abolition
Readings:
1. Custom Text: Frazier (1st ed.): pp. 77-79, 92-94, 110-112.
2. Roediger: pp. 56-57 (William Wells Brown, 1876)
pp. 204-207 (W.E.B. Dubois, 1890)
pp. 284-285: Anna Julia Cooper, 1892)
pp. 286-294 (Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 1895)
RESPONSE PAPER FOR THIS SET OF READINGS (Jan. 29/Feb. 3) DUE: Feb. 5
Images of Whites in the Era of Segregation, 1914-1950
February 5 (Wed.): Former Slaves and their Views on Whites in the Jim Crow South
Readings:
1. Bay: pp. 113-116, 150-182
2. Roediger: p. 102 (Zoral Neal Hurston, 1935).
February 10 (Mon.): Intellectual and Artistic Images
Readings:
1. Custom Text: Frazier (1st ed.): pp. 13-136, 154-156, 170-172
2. Bay, pp. 187-217
3. Roediger: pp. 168-171 (James Weldon Johnson, 1915)
pp. 184-199 (W.E.B. DuBois, 1920)
pp. 216-217 (Rudolph Fisher, 1927)
pp. 71-84 (George Schuyler, 1927)
pp. 240-247 (Langston Hughes, 1934)
pp. 338-342 (Marion Vera Cuthbert, 1936)
pp. 124-125 (Langston Hughes, 1936)
pp. 332-334 (Sterling Brown, 1939)
pp. 122-123 (Robert Hayden, 1940)
pp. 342-349 (Ralph Ellison, 1940)
pp. 126-130 (Harry Haywood, 1948)
RESPONSE PAPER FOR THIS SET OF READINGS (Feb. 5/Feb. 10) DUE: Feb. 12
Images of Whites in the Era of Mass Black Protest
February 12 (Wed.):
Readings:
1. Custom Text: Frazier (1st ed.): pp/ 210-212.
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2. Custom Text: Frazier (1980, 2nd ed.) pp. 373—376, 397-410, 423-436.
3. Custom Text: James McBride, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to
His White Mother (1996) pp. 21-36.
Feb. 17 (Mon.): FEBRUARY BREAK
The Image in the Black Mind, 1980’s- 2000’s
February 19 (Wed.):
Readings:
1. Roediger: pp. 307-316 (Bell Hooks on Madonna)
2. Custom Text: Renford Reese, “White Privilege” in American Paradox:
Young Black Men (2004) pp. 132-139.
3. Custom Text: John Sides, “White people believe the justice system is color
blind. Black people really don’t.” Washington Post (12 July
2013)
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/
…)
4. Custom Text: Brittney Cooper, “the politics of being friends with white
people,” Salon, 13 August 2013
(http://www.salon.com/2013/08/13/the_politics_of_being_friend
s_with_white_people/
5. Mackenzie Weinger, “Poll: Blacks say whites have an edge,” Politico
(http://dyn.political.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=9A4E7C0BBEEC…
February 24 (Mon.) Discussion of student long essay ideas
February 26 (Wed.) NO CLASS/ WORK ON YOUR LONG ESSAY FOR THIS
SECTION
March 3 (Mon.): LONG ESSAY PAPERS DUE ON AFRICAN-AMERICAN
IMAGES OF WHITES
SECTION TWO: The White Image in the African Mind
African Imaginings of Whites: Pre-colonial and Colonial Times
March 3 (Mon.): “Peasant” Responses
Readings:
1. Custom Text: Excerpts from Stuart Schwartz, “Introduction,” in Implicit
Understandings: observing, reporting and reflecting on the encounters
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between Europeans and other peoples in the Early Modern Era (1994)
1-3.
2. Custom Text: Excerpts from Elizabeth Isichei, Voices of the Poor (2002), pp.
1, 2, 5, 9, 10,11, 12, 7.
3. Custom Text: Elizabeth Isichei, Voices of the Poor (2002), pp. 36-41; 111125
March 5 (Wed.): Early Anglophone and Francophone African Intellectual Responses in
the Colonial Era
Readings:
1. UR/ER: Leo Spitzer, “The Sierra Leone Creoles,” in P. Curtin, Africa and the
West (1972) 99-138.
2. UR/ER: G. Wesley Johnson, Jr. “The Senegalese Urban Elite, 1900-1945,” in
P. Curtin, Africa and the West (1972) 139-171.
RESPONSE PAPER FOR THIS SET OF READINGS (Mar. 3/Mar. 5)
DUE: Mar. 10.
Francophone African Literary Responses: Mongo Beti
March 10 (Mon.)
Readings:
1. Mongo Beti, The Poor Christ of Bomba (Part One: 3-79)
March 12 (Wed.) Readings:
1. Mongo Beti, The Poor Christ of Bomba (Part Two: 80-165)
Francophone African Literary Responses: Mongo Beti (cont.)
March 17 (Mon.)
Readings:
1. Mongo Beti The Poor Christ of Bomba (Part Three: 166-219)
March 19 (Wed.) NO CLASS
RESPONSE PAPER FOR THIS SET OF READINGS (Mar. 10/Mar. 12/Mar. 17)
DUE: March 24.
WEEK 9: European Colonialism: African Literary Responses -II
March 24 (Monday):
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Readings:
1. Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguous Adventure (Part One: 3-105)
March 26 (Wednesday):
Readings:
1. Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguous Adventure (Part Two: 109-178)
RESPONSE PAPER FOR THIS SET OF READINGS (Mar. 26/Mar. 28)
DUE: Apr. 7.
SPRING BREAK: MARCH 31-APRIL 2
Cross- Racial Sex in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa
April 7 (Mon.):
Readings:
1. Custom Text: Heidi Gegenbach, “What My Heart Wanted”: Gendered
Stories of Early Colonial Encounters in Southern Mozambique,” in Women in
African Colonial Histories (2002). Edited by Allman, Geiger and Musisi (pp.
19-47).
April 9 (Wed.):
Readings:
2. Custom Text: Paul Ebron, “Traffic in Men, “ Gendered Encounters (1997).
Edited by Grosz-Ngate and Kokole. (pp. 223-244).
RESPONSE PAPER FOR THIS SET OF READINGS (Apr. 7/Apr. 9)
DUE: Apr. 16.
Modern African Responses to Whites as examined in Social Science Studies
April 14 (Mon.):
Readings:
1. UR/ER: Francis B. Nyamanjoh and Ben Page, “Whiteman Kontri and the
Enduring Allure of Modernity among Cameroonian Youth,” African
Affairs, 1001 (2002) 607-634.
April 16: (Wed.): Class discussion on student long essay ideas
April 21 (Mon.): PAPER DUE ON AFRICANS IMAGES OF WHITES DURING
THE COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL PERIODS
SECTION THREE: The White Image in the Asian Mind
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Cross-Racial Sex in Modern/Post-Colonial Japan- Part I
April 21 (Mon.)
Readings:
1. Karen Kelsey, Women on the Verge, Chpt. One.
April 23 (Wed.):
Readings:
1. Karen Kelsey, Women on the Verge, Chpt. Two.
Cross-Racial Sex in Modern/Post-Colonial Japan- Part II
April 28 (Mon.): Cross-Racial Sex in Comparative Perspective-I
Readings:
1. Karen Kelsey, Women on the Verge, Chpt. Three.
April 30 (Wed.)
DISCUSSION: COMPARING JAPANESE AND AFRICAN/BLACK
EXPERIENCES
DISCUSSION ON STUDENT LOING ESSAY IDEAS
FINAL PAPER DUE: FINAL EXAM DATE
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