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American Detective Fiction and Film: African-American Crime Narratives

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American Detective Fiction and Film: African-American Crime Narratives 01:050:306:80 – Spring 2013 Dr. Andrew Repasky McElhinney Thursdays 12 NOON-2.40 PM, Room 202 American Studies at Rutgers-ACCC American Detective Fiction and Film: African-American Crime Narratives SYLLABUS A syllabus should be viewed as a binding contract between student and instructor, in which both parties agree upon rules, methods, procedures, etc for the course of the semester. CONTACT INFORMATION: Instructor E-Mail: [email protected] Office Hours: Thursdays 2.40 – 3.40 PM, online & by appointment Office Location: TBA COURSE DESCRIPTION: The Detective in African-American Crime Fiction and Film flourished in the 20th Century. The genre birthed great masterpieces, haunting memoirs, the urban experience novel, and what is commonly (and now fashionably) known as “Pimp Lit.” These crime narratives have influenced, provoked and inspired subsequent generations and reached beyond the world of books into cinema, TV, popular music, and society-at-large. While offering the action and thrills demanded of the crime genre, these African-American authored texts also importantly give first-hand ‘ground-zero’ accounts of lifestyles and communities extra to the mainstream. This class will explore and celebrate African-American Crime Fiction and Film. Together, the class will seek to understand what these works says about identity, economy, politics, gender and race relations within the United States of America. REQUIRED MATERIALS: • The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem (Rudolph Fisher, 1932) - ISBN: 0472064924 • The Bridge (Solomon Jones, 2003) - ISBN: 031230725X • A black and white composition notebook or other bound book for notes and journaling with blank pages. • A hard copy of readings assigned and placed on Sakai, or the library "eReserve" or passed out in class. ELECTRONIC RESERVE READINGS: See Sakai and please download all of the following e-reserves and bring them to class: • The Confessions of Nat Turner (as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray, 1831) • Benito Cereno (Herman Melville, 1855) • “Antonio Rodriquez: Preliminary Hearing Vol. 1: February 09, 2011” 2 RECOMMENDED READINGS: • King, Stephen. On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft (2000) • Strunk Jr., William and E.B. White. The Elements of Style (first published 1958) GRADING: • You risk losing a letter grade for each week that your assignment is late. • All Grades are subject to Departmental Review GRADING BREAKDOWN: Class participation 40% Journal 10% Mid-Term Essay 20% Oral Presentation 10% Final paper 20% POLICIES: • If you don’t know, ask. • Let everyone benefit from your questions! Post all Questions to Sakai “Discussion and Private Messages” “Questions” thread. • Neatness counts. • Be actively responsible for yourself—a lack of planning on your part is not, nor should be, an emergency for anyone else. • When you submit any assignment online you must attach it as a .doc MS Word file as well as a PDF and, thirdly, you must also copy your text into the body of your email. If you do not do these three things your submission will not be accepted, without exception, and it will consequently be marked late. • All assignment must be labeled correctly when submitted electronically. The correct format is: Your Last Name_Paper_#_Final/Rough_Draft_Date MMDDYYYY i.e Smith_Final_Paper_Rough_Draft_3_01172010.doc • If you do not label your submission like this it will not be accepted and it will consequently be marked late. • Email Instructor at [email protected]. Do not send private messages through Sakai. • All emails to the instructor must be labeled properly in the subject line to be accepted and read. The subject line must be formatted as follows: Class type, name and section; your first initial and last name; work email regards; type of work i.e. “AmCrime – J. Smith – Final Essay – Rough Draft Question” • at the top right of every paper you turn in, you should label the following five lines, single spaced (even when your paper is doubled spaced): Your Name Class Section, Class title Dr. Andrew Repasky McElhinney Assignment, Draft type The Date • Generally Instructor checks his RCI email once a day in the morning. Instructor does not check his email after 7 AM on the day of class. No last minute emails. Any emails sent after 7 AM will be answered the next day. FYI, email replies can take up to 36 hours but most are generally answered in about 12 to 24 hours. • Attendance at all classes is expected. After two absences you risk failing the course. If you expect to miss one or two classes, please touch base with instructor via email and use the University absence reporting website (https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/) to indicate the date and reason for your absence. Lateness of 20 minutes counts as half an absence; any lateness over 50 minutes will count as an absence. • You must turn off your cell phone or pagers and/or other electronic devices before class. Do not have your cell phone or pager and/or any electronic devices visible during class. Any one observed using a cell phone in class for any reason whatsoever—including, but not limited to text messaging, checking the time or 3 making/receiving voice messages—will be marked absent for the class without exception and at the sole discretion of the instructor. • Do not come to class late or leave class before it has ended. • Please use the facilities before class. • You are asked to review and abide by the University's Policy on Academic Integrity, which can be found online at http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu • Since this class will take advantage of SAKAI (sakai.rutgers.edu), all students must have AND USE a Rutgers ID and email address. Sakai classpage: “Sp. 13: African American Crime Narratives” • Readings are on Sakai under “Announcements”. Please note that Sakai only shows some of the announcements at a time and that you may have to click to see older announcements. • All students must have a Rutgers ID card. The library barcode appears on the back of the ID card. All students must know their library PIN. If you do not know the library PIN then go to the circulation desk of any library and the attendant will scan the barcode and give you your PIN. If you want to change the PIN, go to the library website and follow the instructions. YOU MUST DO THIS BY THE SECOND WEEK OF CLASSES. • Consistent preparation of readings and assignments, and active participation in discussions, peer reviews, and other classroom activities is required. Drafts, essays, proposal, bibliographies, and final essay must be typed, with pages numbered and stapled as directed. Grades will be lowered on late assignments and papers. • Come to class a minutes or two early. Unless otherwise instructed, we will begin each class writing a journal entry in our research journal. Guided topics will be announced—if they are not, reflect on where you are in the class, what we watched last week or for homework, questions you may have, make plans, or work on essentializing your evolving theory as it applies to your class work. • Take notes in class, on every movie you watch and/or text read in your journal. Label the top of the page with the date and title of the movie you are making notes on. At the end of the class, the journal will be collected and count toward 10% of your final grade. A successful, A-level journal will have notes on each one of the films and texts listed on the course schedule. You risk loosing half a letter grade for every single movie and text that is absent from your journal. • Students must participate in all class activities. • All work for the course must be kept in a folder for review. • BACK UP AND ARCHIVE YOUR FILES! Computer errors and crashes happen to an alarming degree. A technology malfunction is not an acceptable reason for turning in late work. Make sure you back up your correctly labeled files regularly (i.e TWICE A WEEK). You should have copies on your hard drive, on an external drive and online. Email working drafts and final draft to yourself as both .doc files and pdfs and always copy your text into the body of an email. Your MS word files for the class should NEVER be unavailable to you. • No late or revised work accepted after Thursday April 18, 2013. WARNING: Adult Materials will be sometimes discussed in this classroom and/or assigned as reading/viewing. To talk about race, sex, values, media, art and popular culture is to engage questions about what is appropriate and inappropriate, to consider issues of censorship, and to think hard about the presentation of such emotionally charged subjects as sex, violence, and profanity. What is right and wrong and who decides? This is a college course for where such subjects will be examined. If things like sexuality, coarse language and violence offend you, please do not remain in this class. 4 Course Schedule (subject to change) Week 1 – Thursday Jan. 24 Introductions; Lecture/Discussion: New Jack City (Mario Van Peebles, 1991) Homework: Read The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831) Week 2 – Thursday Jan. 31 Lecture/Discussion: The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831); Beverly Hills Cop (Martin Brest, 1984) Homework: Read Benito Cereno (Herman Melville, 1855) (a full e-text of this reading is available on Sakai) Week 3 – Thursday Feb. 7 Mid-Term Assigned Lecture/Discussion: Benito Cereno; The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831); Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Melvin Van Peebles, 1971) Homework: Read Chapter 1-6 (Pages 3-59) of The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem (Rudolph Fisher, 1932) Week 4 – Thursday Feb. 14 Lecture/Discussion: The Conjure-Man Dies; The Blood of Jesus (Spencer Williams, 1941) / Dutchman (Anthony Harvey, 1967) Homework: Work on the Mid-Term Week 5 – Thursday Feb.
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