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ENGL 3702A: American Culture: Slavery and Its Aftermath

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ENGL 3702A: American Culture: Slavery and Its Aftermath Carleton University Department of English Winter 2010 ENGL 3702A: American Culture: Slavery and Its Aftermath Time: Wednesday 14:35 – 17:25 Location: 208 TB Please confirm location on Carleton Central Instructor: F. Nudelman Office: 201G St. Pat‘s Office Hours: M,10-1 and by appt. Phone: (613) 520-2600 ext. 1773 Email: [email protected] This course explores the impact of chattel slavery on cultural expression in the United States. Over the course of the semester, we will examine the practice of slavery, and resistance to it, as well as the ways that racism and protest against it evolve in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. If the subjection of African Americans has continued in the form lynching, school segregation, and the growth of the prison-industrial-complex, culture has played an important role in the ongoing struggle for justice and equality. Required Texts: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man Toni Morrison, Beloved Barack Obama, Dreams of My Father Eric Sundquist, King’s Dream Books for the course can be purchased at After Stonewall Bookstore at 370 Bank Street. All readings marked with a * will be posted on WebCT. In addition to the readings on the syllabus, student essays posted each Sunday on WebCT are required reading. Viewing Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, Trouble the Water Liz Garbus and Wilbert Rideau, The Farm: Angola U.S.A. David Simon, The Wire Edward Zwick, Glory Films for the course will be on reserve at the library. In addition, I will schedule viewings in advance of class. Viewing marked with a ** can be found on YouTube. Assignments and Evaluation: You will have four assignments this semester: a written research presentation; five in-class writing exercises; a timeline; a take-home exam. Each will account for 25% of your grade. Written Research Presentation: Each of you will choose a week from our syllabus that particularly interests you. In coordination with other students also working on that week, you will conduct research, and write a brief research paper (two single-spaced pages). These papers will be circulated to the class on WebCT, and they are required reading for all students in the class. They must be submitted by midnight on Sunday before the class meets. Late papers will not be accepted. Here are three kinds of research to choose from: 1) Biographical. Biographical research will focus on the life history of one of the writers, musicians, filmmakers, politicians, or performers that we are studying. 2) Textual production. Research on textual production will focus on the conditions that shape a given text and its reception. Who funds the work? Where is it viewed, performed, or read? How does it circulate? What do contemporary commentators have to say about it? 3) Historical context. Research into historical context will focus on social circumstances (events, institutions, social movements, technological developments, etc.) that have a profound influence on the text/s in question. In-Class Writing Over the course of the semester, there will be five unannounced in-class writing assignments. These may take the form of brief responses to the reading, or of reading quizzes. They are designed to insure that you attend class, keep up with the reading, and give the reading some thought in advance of our class meetings. For this reason, you will not be able to make up these assignments. They will be marked with a letter grade. Timeline Each of you will produce a timeline that orders and interrelates the texts and events that we have studied over the course of the semester. These can take many different forms: you might design a website, a map, a structure, a musical composition, a more traditional graph. As these examples suggest, the timeline does not need to be linear. It does need to demonstrate a thorough and original interpretation of how racism, and struggles against it, evolves (or fails to evolve) over time. Your timelines are due on the last day of class. Take-Home Exam This open-book exam will be handed out on the last day of class. The terms and parameters of the exam (time, length, format) will be worked out collectively as the semester proceeds. WebCT The course will be administered through WebCT so please be sure to check regularly for e-mail, assignments, discussion postings, etc. Grades posted on WebCT will be tentative until approved by the Dean. Accommodations You may need special arrangements to meet your academic obligations during the term. For an accommodation request the processes are as follows: Pregnancy obligation: write to me with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. For more details visit the Equity Services website http://www.carleton.ca/equity/accommodation/student_guide.htm Religious obligation: write to me with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. For more details visit the Equity Services website http://www.carleton.ca/equity/accommodation/student_guide.htm Students with disabilities requiring academic accommodation in this course must register with the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities (PMC) for a formal evaluation of disability-related needs. Documented disabilities could include but are not limited to mobility/physical impairments, specific Learning Disabilities (LD), psychiatric/psychological disabilities, sensory disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and chronic medical conditions. Registered PMC students are required to contact the PMC, 613-520-6608, every term to ensure that I receive your Letter of Accommodation, no later than two weeks before the first assignment is due or the first in-class test/midterm requiring accommodations. If you only require accommodations for your formally scheduled exam(s) in this course, please submit your request for accommodations to PMC by the last official day to withdraw from classes in each term. For more details visit the PMC website: http://www.carleton.ca/pmc/students/acad_accom.html Plagiarism: The University Senate defines plagiarism as presenting, whether intentionally or not, the ideas, expression of ideas, or the work of others as one‘s own. This can include: · reproducing or paraphrasing portions of someone else‘s published or unpublished material, regardless of the source, and presenting these as one‘s own without proper citation or reference to the original source · submitting a take-home examination, essay, laboratory report or other assignment written, in whole or in part, by someone else · using ideas, quotations, or paraphrased material, concepts or ideas without appropriate acknowledgement in an essay or assignment · failing to acknowledge sources through the use of proper citations when using another‘s works, and/or failing to use quotation marks · handing in substantially the same piece of work for academic credit more than once without prior written permission of the course instructor in which the submission occurs Plagiarism is a serious offence that cannot be resolved directly with the course‘s instructor. In cases of suspected plagiarism, the Associate Deans of the Faculty conduct a rigorous investigation, including an interview with the student. Penalties may include failure of the assignment, failure of the entire course, suspension from a program, suspension from the university, expulsion from the university. See the Section on Academic Integrity in the Student Conduct Portion of the Undergraduate Calendar. CLASS SCHEDULE JANUARY 6 WEEK 1: Introduction Spike Lee, ―When The Levees Broke‖ **Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, ―When The Levee Breaks‖ (1929) [YouTube] 13 Week Two: We will watch the documentary film ―Trouble the Water,‖ which records the experiences of a young African American couple during and after Hurricane Katrina, examining the role of racial inequality in determining the course of the disaster. Kish‘s essay, ―My FEMA People,‖ discusses the role of hip-hop artists in publicizing the government‘s neglect of African Americans hardest hit by the hurricane. Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, ―Trouble the Water‖ (2008) Zenia Kish, ― ‗My FEMA People‘: Hip-Hop as Disaster Recovery in the Katrina Diaspora‖ (2009) **Two Cent, ―Freedom Land‖ (2007) (YouTube) 20 Week Three: Toni Morrison‘s 1987 novel, Beloved, tells the story of slavery and emancipation through the character of a mother and her two daughters. It builds on the literature of enslavement, chronicling the sexual abuse of slave women, the fragmentation of slave families, and the history of the underground railroad, while also exploring the historical effect of trauma so vital to thinking about slavery in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987) 27 Week Four: Frederick Douglass‘s Narrative recounts life under slavery, as well as documenting the process of liberation. This autobiography continues to influence writers and scholars interested in questions of violence, literacy, and liberation as they pertain to the history of slavery. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) FEBRUARY 3 Week Five: Frederick Douglass and many others saw military service as a path to freedom and equality for black men. Edward Zwick takes up the history of black soldiers fighting in the Union army in his 1989 film, ―Glory.‖ Edward Zwick, ―Glory‖ (1989) *Frederick Douglass, ―Men of Color, To Arms!‖ (1863) *Abraham Lincoln, ―Emancipation Proclamation‖ (1863), ―To Albert Hodges‖ (1864), ―Second Inaugural Address‖ (1865) 10 Week 6: This week we consider singers, poets, and essayists who responded to lynching, a form of violence that enforced segregation and inequality in the post-emancipation South. We will study Billie Holiday‘s famous performance of ―Strange Fruit,‖ as well as the story of Emmett Till, a black teenager murdered by two white men in Money, Mississippi in 1955.
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