Professor Glynis Carr
Fall Semester 1999
Office:  207C Vaughan Literature Building
Office Hours:  T & Th 11-12:00; W 4-5
    and by appointment
Phone Numbers:  577-3118 (Office);   577-1553 (Department secretary)
         523-7486 (Home, not too late, please!)
 

Texts and Materials: (available at campus bookstore):

Xeroxed materials (available in class).
Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y McKay, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature
 

Links to Related Sites and Suggestions for Further Reading. Under Construction.
 

Course Description, Objectives, and Format:

This course is an introductory survey of African American literature written before the Harlem Renaissance (c. 1920), during the eras of slavery and reconstruction.  Cultural historians consider these years to be crucial and formative, as African American identities and positions were shaped, contested, and reshaped in the midst of intense political struggle.  During these years, black people and their cultural productions, including literature, were central to emerging definitions of American character and destiny, while at the same time they were marginalized via the mechanisms of racial segregation.  The principal objective of this course is to examine the body of literature in the context of this paradox, while considering the cultural legacy of the literature to our own era.

The course emphasizes poetry and fiction, but also includes autobiographical writing, oratory, essays, drama, and material from oral traditions.   The course is organized chronologically, covering the major literary movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (romance, realism, regionalism/local color, and naturalism).  Students will be introduced to the recurring themes of African American writers, the social and political contexts in which they wrote, and black artists' literary experimentation and innovation.  An important goal will be to understand the diversity of African Americans:  authors on the syllabus represent a variety of class, gender, regional, ethnic, and religious identities.

The class format will be a combination of informal lecture,  discussion, in-class listening to music, and screening of films and videos.  I consider discussion to be the most interesting and important part of what we do in class, but we will not be able to discuss every reading assignment in depth.  Nor will lectures recapitulate the readings.  In other words, reading and class attendance do not substitute for one another.  Students are expected to come to class having done the reading and prepared to contribute to discussion.
 

Assignments and Evaluation:

Attendance and participation count toward the final grade.

Weekly journals are a major assignment for this class.  Each Tuesday students will turn in responses, comments, and questions about readings scheduled for discussion.  Since I will use these journals to structure our discussions on Thursdays, it is absolutely essential that they be thoughtful and on time.  Journals may be short, informal, and need not be typed (unless I can't read your handwriting).  The journal assignment is designed to let me know that you are keeping up with the reading (i.e., in lieu of a final exam, the journs show me that you've "covering" the material in lieu of a final exam) and to allow "one-to-one" communication between us.  I will occasionally pose specific questions for students to address in their journals and I will sometimes prepare handouts from these weekly writings, so be sure to indicate to me in case you want your work to be used anonymously or not used at all in this way.  Journals may be any length, but typically students write 1-3 typewritten pages. Use a word processor if at all possible and hand in loose pages.  I will return journals within one week, having checked them and commented briefly.  Twice during the semester, students will resubmit journals, bound in a folder or notebook if desired, for a letter grade.

Students will write two short (10-12 pp.) papers, on topics of their own choosing, that engage some aspect of the course materials. Research papers should reflect students' original ideas about one or more literary texts we've studied, as well as library research.  Research papers are formal: they must be typed and include a bibliography of primary and secondary sources cited.  In order to facilitate research, a session has been scheduled in the library to introduce students to the major tools for the study of African American literature before 1920.

Instead of one of the papers, students may design an alternative project, working either independently or in a small group.  Some ideas for alternative projects are:   create art, including performed art and music, that directly responds to one of the works studied;  "translate" a work into another genre--for example, write a screenplay dramatizing Frederick Douglass' Narrative;  design a curricular unit (these projects are popular with education majors); and so on.  Be creative and surprise me!
 
One alternative project I am especially eager to promote is for students to contribute to The Online Archive of Nineteenth-Century U.S. Women's Writings that I edit (and which can be viewed at http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cUSWW).  Since the late 1960s, scholars of U.S. literature have systematically recovered writings by nineteenth-century U.S. women that had been marginalized earlier in the twentieth century, including virtually all of the literature by African American women. This rediscovery and reassessment has completely changed the ways in which U.S. literature as a whole is understood. I have several projects in mind, including an edition of Frances Harper's Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854) or an edition of a set of remarkable essays by Charlotte Forten Grimke, including "Life in the Sea Islands," that explore her experiences as a teacher of former slaves.  To contribute to The Archive entails learning some of the principles of textual editing, HTML 4.0, and elementary web design.

The final grade will be distributed as follows: Attendance and participation, 15%; Journals 25%; Research papers 30% each.
 

Class Policies

• Please do see me in my office, whether or not you are experiencing difficulty with the course. I will be there during regularly scheduled office hours for students wishing to drop in. To make an appointment, see me after class or use the telephone.
• Students with disabilities will be accomodated. Students who need disability-related classroom accomodations are encouraged to make an appointment to see me as soon as possible.
• The calendar will be adjusted to accomodate Jewish students who plan to celebrate the traditional holidays; see me if you need to be excused from class.
• Attendance is required. If you are ill or have another type of excused absence, contact the dean's office.
• Student journals, presentations, discussion questions, or any other assignment contributing to the daily lesson plan may NOT be handed in late. Otherwise, late work will be accepted, but will be graded down.
• Papers must be typed. Use double-spacing and leave ample margins for my comments. Use regular bond: use neither "onion skin" nor heavy, stationary-quality paper.
• Plagiarism (using someone else's ideas or words as your own) is a serious offense at Bucknell University. Papers suspected of being plagiarized will not be graded; cases of plagiarism and other species of academic misconduct will be handed over to the appropriate university officials.
• Grades will not be discussed for 24 hours after students receive them. This "cooling off" period provides students the opportunity to reflect on the assignment and my comments, as well as to determine exactly what they want from a conference with me.

Week 1:  Aug. 26
Introduction to the course

Week 2:  Aug. 31 - Sept. 2
Read:  "Preface,"  xxvii-xxxvi; Introduction to "The Vernacular Tradition," 1-5; Spirituals, 5-16; Introduction to "The Literature of Slavery and Freedom:  1746-1865," 127-137; Poems by Lucy Terry, Phillis Wheatley, and George Horton, and James Whitfield.

Week 3:  Sept. 7-9
Read:  Gospel, 16-22; Sermons, 60-90;  Material by Maria Stewart, Ada [Sarah L. Forten], David Walker, Sojourner Truth, Henry Garnet.
In-class video screening:  "Ethnic Notions"

Week 4:  Sept. 14-16
Read:  Secular Rhymes and Songs, 37-41; Work Songs, 52-55; Material by Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, and Victor Sejour.
Film Screening:  Sept. 15, 7-9 PM, "Amistad"

Week 5:  Sept. 21-13
Read:  Material by Frederick Douglass

Week 6:  Sept. 28-30
Read:  Material by Frances Harper and Harriet Wilson.

Week 7:  Oct. 5-7
Read:  Material by Booker T. Washington; Folktales, 102-126.
Due Oct. 8, 5 PM:  Mid-semester paper or project; journals for first half of semester.

Week 8:  Oct. 14
NO CLASS OCTOBER 12:  FALL RECESS
Read:  Material by Charles W. Chesnutt

Week 9: Oct. 19-21
Read:  Material by Charlotte Forten Grimke, Anna Julia Cooper, and Pauline Hopkins
 
Week 10:  Oct. 26
Read:  Blues, 22-36; Material by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and James Corrothers

Week 11:  Nov. 2-4
Read:  Material by W.E.B. DuBois

Week 12:  Nov. 9-11
Read:  Material by James Weldon Johnson

Week 13:  Nov. 16-18
Read:  Material by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Week 14
NO CLASS:  THANKSGIVING RECESS

Week 15:  Nov. 30-Dec. 2
Read:  Material by Sutton Griggs, Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson, William Stanley Braithwaite, and Fenton Johnson

Week 16:  Dec. 7
Course Evaluations and Wrap-Up
Due:  Journals for second half of semester
 
Final Papers and Projects are due in my office at the time specified by the registrar.
 

   Return to Glynis Carr's Home Page