Brian Baaki Spring 2020 Course Description English 3325 in This

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Brian Baaki Spring 2020 Course Description English 3325 In this class, we will study a range of works in early African American literature from its inception in the Colonial Period through the Harlem Renaissance. We will begin with the first slave narratives by Briton Hammon (1760) and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1772), along with the poetry of Phillis Wheatley (1773). We will then read the autobiographies of early African Americans John Marrant (1785) and Venture Smith (1798). Moving into the antebellum period, we will study some of the first works of African American fiction from the 1850s: Frederick Douglass’s The Heroic Slave (1852) and Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig (1859). We will continue with an examination of Frances Ellen Watkins poetry of the Reconstruction period, Sketches of Southern Life (1872), before ending with three complex, modernist works that will take us through the Harlem Renaissance: Paul Laurence Dunbar’s The Sport of the Gods (1902), James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Through this study, will gain a sense of the transatlantic and transcultural currents guiding African American literature from its beginning and across three centuries. We will also work as a class to develop a working definition of early African American literature, to articulate what links modern texts to works from earlier periods. Students will be required to complete regular reading response assignments, submit two mid- length critical research papers, write a short summary of an assigned secondary text, and complete a final exam. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Texts Checklist, the Making of African American Identity
National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox The Making of African American Identity: Vol. I, 1500-1865 A collection of primary resources—historical documents, literary texts, and works of art—thematically organized with notes and discussion questions I. FREEDOM pages ____ 1 Senegal & Guinea 12 –Narrative of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (Job ben Solomon) of Bondu, 1734, excerpts –Narrative of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (“the Prince”), of Futa Jalon, 1828 ____ 2 Mali 4 –Narrative of Boyrereau Brinch (Jeffrey Brace) of Bow-woo, Niger River valley, 1810, excerpts ____ 3 Ghana 6 –Narrative of Broteer Furro (Venture Smith) of Dukandarra, 1798, excerpts ____ 4 Benin 11 –Narrative of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua of Zoogoo, 1854, excerpts ____ 5 Nigeria 18 –Narrative of Olaudah Equiano of Essaka, Eboe, 1789, excerpts –Travel narrative of Robert Campbell to his “motherland,” 1859-1860, excerpts ____ 6 Capture 13 –Capture in west Africa: selections from the 18th-20th-century narratives of former slaves –Slave mutinies, early 1700s, account by slaveship captain William Snelgrave FREEDOM: Total Pages 64 II. ENSLAVEMENT pages ____ 1 An Enslaved Person’s Life 36 –Photographs of enslaved African Americans, 1847-1863 –Jacob Stroyer, narrative, 1885, excerpts –Narratives (WPA) of Jenny Proctor, W. L. Bost, and Mary Reynolds, 1936-1938 ____ 2 Sale 15 –New Orleans slave market, description in Solomon Northup narrative, 1853 –Slave auctions, descriptions in 19th-century narratives of former slaves, 1840s –On being sold: selections from the 20th-century WPA narratives of former slaves, 1936-1938 ____ 3 Plantation 29 –Green Hill plantation, Virginia: photographs, 1960s –McGee plantation, Mississippi: description, ca. 1844, in narrative of Louis Hughes, 1897 –Williams plantation, Louisiana: description, ca.
[Show full text]
Image Credits, the Making of African
THE MAKING OF AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY: VOL. I, 1500-1865 PRIMARY SOURCE COLLECTION The Making of African American Identity: Vol. I, 1500-1865 IMAGE CREDITS Items listed in chronological order within each repository. ALABAMA DEPT. of ARCHIVES AND HISTORY. Montgomery, Alabama. WEBSITE Reproduced by permission. —Physical and Political Map of the Southern Division of the United States, map, Boston: William C. Woodbridge, 1843; adapted to Woodbridges Geography, 1845; map database B-315, filename: se1845q.sid. Digital image courtesy of Alabama Maps, University of Alabama. ALLPORT LIBRARY AND MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. State Library of Tasmania. Hobart, Tasmania (Australia). WEBSITE Reproduced by permission of the Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office. —Mary Morton Allport, Comet of March 1843, Seen from Aldridge Lodge, V. D. Land [Tasmania], lithograph, ca. 1843. AUTAS001136168184. AMERICAN TEXTILE HISTORY MUSEUM. Lowell, Massachusetts. WEBSITE Reproduced by permission. —Wooden snap reel, 19th-century, unknown maker, color photograph. 1970.14.6. ARCHIVES OF ONTARIO. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. WEBSITE In the public domain; reproduced courtesy of Archives of Ontario. —Letter from S. Wickham in Oswego, NY, to D. B. Stevenson in Canada, 12 October 1850. —Park House, Colchester, South, Ontario, Canada, refuge for fugitive slaves, photograph ca. 1950. Alvin D. McCurdy fonds, F2076-16-6. —Voice of the Fugitive, front page image, masthead, 12 March 1854. F 2076-16-935. —Unidentified black family, tintype, n.d., possibly 1850s; Alvin D. McCurdy fonds, F 2076-16-4-8. ASBURY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. Wilmore, Kentucky. Permission requests submitted. –“Slaves being sold at public auction,” illustration in Thomas Lewis Johnson, Twenty-Eight Years a Slave, or The Story of My Life in Three Continents, 1909, p.
[Show full text]
The Thirteenth Amendment: Modern Slavery, Capitalism, and Mass Incarceration Michele Goodwin University of California, Irvine
Cornell Law Review Volume 104 Article 4 Issue 4 May 2019 The Thirteenth Amendment: Modern Slavery, Capitalism, and Mass Incarceration Michele Goodwin University of California, Irvine Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Michele Goodwin, The Thirteenth Amendment: Modern Slavery, Capitalism, and Mass Incarceration, 104 Cornell L. Rev. 899 (2019) Available at: https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol104/iss4/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT: MODERN SLAVERY, CAPITALISM, AND MASS INCARCERATION Michele Goodwint INTRODUCTION ........................................ 900 I. A PRODIGIOUS CYCLE: PRESERVING THE PAST THROUGH THE PRESENT ................................... 909 II. PRESERVATION THROUGH TRANSFORMATION: POLICING, SLAVERY, AND EMANCIPATION........................ 922 A. Conditioned Abolition ....................... 923 B. The Punishment Clause: Slavery's Preservation Through Transformation..................... 928 C. Re-appropriation and Transformation of Black Labor Through Black Codes, Crop Liens, Lifetime Labor, Debt Peonage, and Jim Crow.. 933 1. Black Codes .......................... 935 2. Convict Leasing ........................ 941
[Show full text]
1 the Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Library
The Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Library Bibliography: with Annotations on marginalia, and condition. Compiled by Christian Goodwillie, 2017. Coastal Affair. Chapel Hill, NC: Institute for Southern Studies, 1982. Common Knowledge. Duke Univ. Press. Holdings: vol. 14, no. 1 (Winter 2008). Contains: "Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: First and Lasting Impressions" by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. Confederate Veteran Magazine. Harrisburg, PA: National Historical Society. Holdings: vol. 1, 1893 only. Continuity: A Journal of History. (1980-2003). Holdings: Number Nine, Fall, 1984, "Recovering Southern History." DeBow's Review and Industrial Resources, Statistics, etc. (1853-1864). Holdings: Volume 26 (1859), 28 (1860). Both volumes: Front flyleaf: Notes OK Both volumes badly water damaged, replace. Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1958. Volumes 1 through 4: Front flyleaf: Notes OK Volume 2 Text block: scattered markings. Entrepasados: Revista De Historia. (1991-2012). 1 Holdings: number 8. Includes:"Entrevista a Eugene Genovese." Explorations in Economic History. (1969). Holdings: Vol. 4, no. 5 (October 1975). Contains three articles on slavery: Richard Sutch, "The Treatment Received by American Slaves: A Critical Review of the Evidence Presented in Time on the Cross"; Gavin Wright, "Slavery and the Cotton Boom"; and Richard K. Vedder, "The Slave Exploitation (Expropriation) Rate." Text block: scattered markings. Explorations in Economic History. Academic Press. Holdings: vol. 13, no. 1 (January 1976). Five Black Lives; the Autobiographies of Venture Smith, James Mars, William Grimes, the Rev. G.W. Offley, [and] James L. Smith. Documents of Black Connecticut; Variation: Documents of Black Connecticut. 1st ed. ed. Middletown: Conn., Wesleyan University Press, 1971. Badly water damaged, replace.
[Show full text]
Literacy and the Humanizing Project in Olaudah Equiano's The
eSharp Issue 10: Orality and Literacy Literacy and the Humanizing Project in Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative and Ottobah Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments Jeffrey Gunn (University of Glasgow) [A]ny history of slavery must be written in large part from the standpoint of the slave. (Richard Hofstadter, cited in Nichols 1971, p.403) The above statement suggests two sequential conclusions. The first implication is that the slave is in an authoritative position to present an authentic or alternative history of slavery beyond the ‘imperial gaze’ of Europeans (Murphy 1994, p.553). The second implication suggests that the act of writing empowers the slave. Literacy is the vehicle that enables the slave to determine his own self-image and administer control over the events he chooses to relate while writing himself into history. Throughout my paper I will argue that the act of writing becomes a humanizing process, as Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano present a human image of the African slave, which illuminates the inherent contradictions of the slave trade.1 The slave narratives emerging in the late eighteenth century arose from an intersection of oral and literary cultural expressions and are evidence of the active role played by former black slaves in the drive towards the abolition of the African slave trade in the British Empire. Two of the most important slave narratives to surface are Olaudah Equiano’s The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah 1 I will use the term ‘African’ to describe all black slaves in the African slave trade regardless of their geographical location.
[Show full text]
Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Online Database Exercises
Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Online Database Exercises Go to www.slavevoyages.org. The new web site combines searchable new data on 35,000 voyages with new estimates of the slave trade which can be manipulated and presented by any combination of time, region of embarkation, region of disembarkation and national carrier. Please complete each exercise. Thank you. For exercises 1 to 3, click on “Assessing the Slave Trade” along the top of the home page, then choose “Estimates.” Exercise 1: Generate a time profile of the slave trade from its beginning in the 16th C to 1866 -the year in which the last slave voyage in the database reached the Americas. (There are three new options on the “Estimates” page, just below the normal menu options. Click on “Timeline,” if it does not initially come up when you travel to the site.) At the bottom of the page is the button to “Download” the information onto your computer, to make it available for printing. Exercise 2: What were the African coastal origins of the slave trade in each century that the slave trade was carried on? (Instead of “Timeline,” now select “Tables.” For Rows select “1OO- year periods” and for Columns select “embarkation regions.” Then click on “show” button). Exercise 3: What were American destinations for the slave trade in each century that the slave trade was carried on? (Click on the Columns box and select “broad disembarkation regions” then on the Cells box above display area on the right and select “only disembarked.” Then click on “show” button). For the remaining exercises, choose “Voyages Database” from the top menu and then choose “Search the database.” The left of the screen allows you to select the data.
[Show full text]
Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; a Literary Weapon
PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research University of Tlemcen Faculty of Letters and Languages Department of English Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; a Literary Weapon Against Slavery Dissertation submitted to the Department of English as a partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Literature and Civilization Presented by Supervised by Ms.Tasnim BELAIDOUNI Ms.Meriem MENGOUCHI BOARD OF EXAMINERS Dr. Wassila MOURO Chairwoman Ms. Meriem MENGOUCHI Supervisor Dr. Frid DAOUDI Examiner Academic Year: 2016/2017 Dedications To those who believed in me To those who helped me through hard times To my Mother, my family and my friends I dedicate this work ii Acknowledgements Immense loads of gratitude and thanks are addressed to my teacher and supervisor Ms. Meriem MENGOUCHI; this work could have never come to existence without your vivacious guidance, constant encouragement, and priceless advice and patience. My sincerest acknowledgements go to the board of examiners namely; Dr. Wassila MOURO and Dr. Frid DAOUDI My deep gratitude to all my teachers iii Abstract Harriet Ann Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl seemed not to be the only literary work which tackled the issue of woman in slavery. However, this autobiography is the first published slave narrative written in the nineteenth century. In fact, the primary purpose of this research is to dive into Incidents in order to examine the author’s portrayal of a black female slave fighting for her freedom and her rights. On the other hand, Jacobs shows that despite the oppression and the persecution of an enslaved woman, she did not remain silent, but she strived to assert herself.
[Show full text]
The Abolition of the British Slave Trade Sofía Muñoz Valdivieso (Málaga, Spain)
The Abolition of the British Slave Trade Sofía Muñoz Valdivieso (Málaga, Spain) 2007 marks the bicentenary of the Abolition of individual protagonists of the abolitionist cause, the Slave Trade in the British Empire. On 25 the most visible in the 2007 commemorations March 1807 Parliament passed an Act that put will probably be the Yorkshire MP William an end to the legal transportation of Africans Wilberforce, whose heroic fight for abolition in across the Atlantic, and although the institution Parliament is depicted in the film production of of slavery was not abolished until 1834, the 1807 Amazing Grace, appropriately released in Act itself was indeed a historic landmark. Britain on Friday, 23 March, the weekend of Conferences, exhibitions and educational the bicentenary. The film reflects the traditional projects are taking place in 2007 to view that places Wilberforce at the centre of commemorate the anniversary, and many the antislavery process as the man who came different British institutions are getting involved to personify the abolition campaign (Walvin in an array of events that bring to public view 157), to the detriment of other less visible but two hundred years later not only the equally crucial figures in the abolitionist parliamentary process whereby the trading in movement, such as Thomas Clarkson, Granville human flesh was made illegal (and the Sharp and many others, including the black antislavery campaign that made it possible), but voices who in their first-person accounts also what the Victoria and Albert Museum revealed to British readers the cruelty of the exhibition calls the Uncomfortable Truths of slave system.
[Show full text]
220 Resources on Black Church History in America
Bibliography for Black Church History And for Black History in America © 2017, By Bob Kellemen Bibliography Disclaimer: Inclusion in this bibliography does not constitute an endorsement. This is an academic bibliography designed for research purposes. The reader is encouraged to read and research with biblical discernment. Albert, Octavia, ed. The House of Bondage or Charlotte Brooks and Other Slaves. Reprint edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Alexander, Curtis. Richard Allen: The First Exemplar of African American Education. New York: ECA Associates, 1985. Allen, William, Charles Ware, and Lucy Garrison. Slave Songs of the United States. Reprint edition. New York: Peter Smith, 1929. Altschul, Paisius, ed. An Unbroken Circle: Linking Ancient African Christianity to the African- American Experience. St Louis: Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black, 1997. Anderson, Robert. From Slavery to Affluence: Memories of Robert Anderson, Ex-Slave. Hemingford, NB: The Hemingford Ledger, 1927. Andrews, Dale. Practical Theology for Black Churches. Louisville: Westminster, 2002. Andrews, William, ed. North Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane, Moses Grandy, and Thomas H. Jones. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. –––––, ed. Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Anyabwile, Thabiti. The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007. –––––. The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007. –––––. Reviving the Black Church: A Call to Reclaim a Sacred Institution. Nashville: B&H, 2015. 2 Arnett, B., ed. Proceedings of the Quarto-Centennial Conference of the A.M.E.
[Show full text]
Oxherding Tale by Charles Johnson
Charles Johnson Cxherdinq tolp A NOVEL Oxherding Tale By Charles Johnson Andrew Hawkins' birth is the result of a huge misunderstanding. His story begins on an evening in 1837. Jonathan Polkinghorne, master of the Cripplegate plantation, and his dutiful but- ler, George Hawkins, drink a bit too much and decide they can't go home to their own wives—so they go home to each others'. Disaster ensues. Their wives never quite recover, George is banished to the fields, and nine months later Anna Polkinghorne gives birth to the fated narrator of Oxherd- ing Tale. As a youth, Andrew is caught in the perpetual battle of the sexes; as he ma- tures, he becomes a social chameleon, who tastes life fully in both the white and the black worlds, never truly belonging to either. Charles Johnson's comic philosophical novel takes the form of a picaresque, first-person narrative. It is the story of Andrew's desperate flight from slavery, but in Oxherding Tale bondage is spiritual as well as physical, sexual as well as racial. Andrew's adventures cover not only the landscape of the antebellum South—the horrors of the "peculiar institution," black suicide, and death in the mines—but also timeless questions of identity and the na- ture of the self. The novel's title refers to the "Ten Oxherding Pictures" of the twelfth-century Zen artist Kuo-an Shih- yuan, which depict the progress of a young herdsman searching for his wayward ox (Self). Accordingly, the narrative skillfully interfaces Eastern (and Western) philosophical traditions with the drama of black American slavery.
[Show full text]
1. Slavery, Resistance and the Slave Narrative
“I have often tried to write myself a pass” A Systemic-Functional Analysis of Discourse in Selected African American Slave Narratives Tobias Pischel de Ascensão Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie am Fachbereich Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft der Universität Osnabrück Hauptberichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Oliver Grannis Nebenberichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Busse Osnabrück, 01.12.2003 Contents i Contents List of Tables iii List of Figures iv Conventions and abbreviations v Preface vi 0. Introduction: the slave narrative as an object of linguistic study 1 1. Slavery, resistance and the slave narrative 6 1.1 Slavery and resistance 6 1.2 The development of the slave narrative 12 1.2.1 The first phase 12 1.2.2 The second phase 15 1.2.3 The slave narrative after 1865 21 2. Discourse, power, and ideology in the slave narrative 23 2.1 The production of disciplinary knowledge 23 2.2 Truth, reality, and ideology 31 2.3 “The writer” and “the reader” of slave narratives 35 2.3.1 Slave narrative production: “the writer” 35 2.3.2 Slave narrative reception: “the reader” 39 3. The language of slave narratives as an object of study 42 3.1 Investigations in the language of the slave narrative 42 3.2 The “plain-style”-fallacy 45 3.3 Linguistic expression as functional choice 48 3.4 The construal of experience and identity 51 3.4.1 The ideational metafunction 52 3.4.2 The interpersonal metafunction 55 3.4.3 The textual metafunction 55 3.5 Applying systemic grammar 56 4.
[Show full text]
Slave Narratives and African American Women’S Literature
UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA Facultad de Filología Departamento de Filología Inglesa HARRIET JACOBS: FORERUNNER OF GENDER STUDIES IN SLAVE NARRATIVES AND AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE Sonia Sedano Vivanco 2009 UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA Facultad de Filología Departamento de Filología Inglesa HARRIET JACOBS: FORERUNNER OF GENDER STUDIES IN SLAVE NARRATIVES AND AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE Vº Bº Tesis doctoral que presenta SONIA LA DIRECTORA, SEDANO VIVANCO, dirigida por la Dra. OLGA BARRIOS HERRERO Salamanca 2009 UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA Facultad de Filología Departamento de Filología Inglesa HARRIET JACOBS: FORERUNNER OF GENDER STUDIES IN SLAVE NARRATIVES AND AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE Sonia Sedano Vivanco 2009 a Manu por el presente a Jimena, Valeria y Mencía por el futuro People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. (Maya Angelou) Keep in mind always the present you are constructing. It should be the future you want. (Alice Walker) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I decided to undertake this project, enthusiasm and passion filled my heart. I did not know then that this would be such a demanding, complex—but at the same time enjoyable and gratifying—enterprise. It has been a long journey in which I have found the support, encouragement and help of several people whom I must now show my gratitude. First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Olga Barrios for all her support, zealousness, and stimulus. The thorough revisions, sharp comments, endless interest, and continuous assistance of this indefatigable professor have been of invaluable help. Thank you also to well-known scholar of African American literature Frances Smith Foster, whose advice in the genesis of this dissertation served to establish a valid work hypothesis.
[Show full text]