LITERATURE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY AND ITS LEGACY
|
HSS
403-001,
Fall
2019 |
Professor Burt Kimmelman |
Website: http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma
PLEASE NOTE:
IF YOU
ARE NOT ADEPT AT READING IN ENGLISH, THEN YOU SHOULD NOT SIGN UP FOR
THIS COURSE (INSTEAD, YOU SHOULD ENROLL IN A SENIOR SEMINAR
COURSE THAT IS
NOT CONCERNED WITH LITERATURE). THE COURSE WILL REQUIRE ANALYZING
LITERATURE IN
ENGLISH, AND IT ALSO WILL REQUIRE BEING ABLE TO WRITE CLEARLY ABOUT IT.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will examine literary and some supportive historical works written before, during and after the American Civil War, having mostly to do with slavery in America. In particular, the course will consider how writers have dealt with this keystone experience in American history and culture stylistically and ethically. The course will also reflect upon how these works have helped to shape the American ethos and identity, and how slavery in America has, as a legacy, helped to create the larger sense of American culture and literature as a body of work unique to the United States.
Literary works will be compared with each other and will
be read within the framework primarily of their respective times.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course
COURSE TEXTS
(you should read the editions of the works below as specified, not other versions)
Baldwin, James. "Notes of a Native Son," "Nobody Knows My Name," and Fifth Avenue Uptown" (in Canvas).
Du Bois, W. E. B. The
Souls of Black Folk.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage, 1995. ISBN: 067932764. (Optional)
Gates, Henry Louis. Ed. and Intr.
The Classic Slave Narratives.
Jones, LeRoi (Amiri Baraka),
Dutchman and The Slave: Two Plays.
Kearns Goodwin, Doris. "The Sewards' Trip South, 1835." (See in Canvas.)
Morrison, Toni.
The Bluest Eye.
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric, 2014 (excerpt in Canvas).
Slave Narratives by Olaudah Equiano, Frederic Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Mary Prince (in Canvas and available online).
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle
Tom's Cabin.
Twain, Mark. Huckleberry
Finn.
Wheatley, Phillis. Selected poems to be found at the Poetry Foundation website: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/phillis-wheatley#about)
Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys, 2019 (short excerpt in Canvas).
Glossary of Terms and
Definitions
Other Online Literary
Resources
Humanities Resources Links: http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma/humanities.htm.
Writing Guides Links:
http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma/writing.html.
Documentation Guides Links: http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma/documentation.html.
Abbreviations for
Marking Papers
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
* Final take-home examination, comprehensive, essay in format, open-book; the exam question(s) will be distributed to you at least a week ahead of time. The exam essay(s) must be uploaded as a Word file in the proper place in the Assignments section of our course in Canvas.
* An end-of-term research paper (the Term Paper), to be 1500 to 3000 words (excluding bibliography) in length; this essay must be a researched, fully-documented, original and critical, discursive, polemical and otherwise argumentative essay that must include at least some detailed literary analysis (see below^^), along with a bibliography of all primary and secondary sources† (again, the bibliography is not to be considered part of your word count)—the essay must not be a mere report, and should be one that is appropriate to a course in literature (as opposed to, for example, a course in history, although historical matters may be included in the essay for this course). The term paper topic is open (yet the topic must have something to do with the literature of American slavery and/or American slavery's legacy) but must be approved ahead of time by the instructor.
* A Term Paper Announcement (see full description below^) consisting of a Working Title and Subtitle, a one-sentence Thesis Statement indicating what of a truly polemical nature is to be proven in your essay, a Description of your future paper’s writing strategy (one paragraph can be enough here, but more than one is acceptable—this is not to be a summary of what you think your paper will turn out to be, but rather a narrative describing how you will prove your thesis), and a Bibliography of at least three secondary sources,† one of which must be a hard-copy source (see full description of bibliography requirements below^).
N.B.: Research Term Paper assignments should be submitted in order, and the TPA should be preceded by your submission of a proposed topic for the paper. Your topic must meet be approved by the instructor. There are Discussion areas where you are expected to post ideas for your paper, and once your idea has been approved where your TPA should also be posted (the TPA can be simple and short but must contain all the elements mentioned above, and this too must be approved). Please don't upload attachments to the discussion forums.
* A group project to be submitted in Power Point at the end of the course. This group-composed document would contain both visual imagery and text, and possibly music, and would delve into a chosen issue or facet of literature involving American slavery and/or its legacy.
* A portofolio of your 8 best posts in the course (your selection). How to create this portfolio: select by copying and pasting the 8 posts you think best demonstrate your performance in this course in the weekly exchanges of commentary, including the time stamp of each post. Paste the posts in chronological order in a Word file and upload it, at the end of the term, in the appropriate place in the Assignment section of our course in Canvas.
* Posted commentary of various kinds.
N.B.: Initial posts will receive a grade—but this grade is advisory only, meant only to guide you so you can get a clear sense of the expectations you must meet in our course; however, when actually grading a student's posts, at the end of the course, no post will receive a grade lower than the advisory grade, and the ultimate grade for a post could be higher than the advisory grade. (Note also that a grade of "D-" is to be reserved for posted writing that does not conform to the minimum standards as regarding protocols for writing in our course—you are expected, in all posts to the class, to use standard writing protocols and Standard English, to have spell checked your writing before posting it and as best you can to have grammar checked it—so don't write as you normally might write when texting or emailing. A "D-" may also be assigned for posts not meeting the minimum word length—see below.)
Initial weekly posts must be a minimum of 100 words and normally not more than 150 words. Secondary posts—i.e., posts in response to initial posts—should be from 50 to 100 words. Follow-up posts, in the form of questions or comments, or in reply to the instructor's comments or questions or both, can be of any length. One initial post per weekly reading assignment and one secondary post are required.
N.B.: Failure to participate in class discussions (i.e., the posts as described above) at a minimally acceptable level will result in disqualification of end-of-term assignments such as the term paper and final exam; such disqualification must inevitably spell failure in the course. In order to pass this course a student must be consistently active in daily/weekly class work starting from the beginning of the course term.
Disqualification of prior work can also result from
failure to submit a minimally-acceptable response to the final exam question(s).
^ Term
Paper
Announcement:
Consists of 1) a descriptive paper title and subtitle, 2) a
thesis statement that includes the point of your argument, the breadth of that
argument, and the argument’s significant concepts and details, 3) a description
of the writing or argumentative strategy to be employed in your paper (this is
not to be confused with a summary of your projected essay), 4) an alphabetized
bibliography of at least three secondary sources, to be listed along with any
primary sources to be used,† which you plan to consult as part of your research
project, presented in proper MLA format (see writing and documentation
guidelines above, listed with the course readings), one of which must be a
hard-copy source (for the purposes of this assignment encyclopedias,
dictionaries, and textbooks will not be considered as counting toward the
requisite minimum number of secondary sources, although they can be used in your
term paper project and should be listed in your bibliography—but articles
obtained from a NJIT or Rutgers database should be considered as "hard copy").
^^
Term
Paper:
Consists of: 1) a descriptive paper title and subtitle, 2) a
full-length essay, 3) a bibliography in MLA format and alphabetized. For the
purposes of this assignment, use must be made of at least three secondary
research sources† (one of them hard copy) excluding textbooks, encyclopedias and
dictionaries that may also be used and should be cited if used, presented in proper MLA format (see writing and
documentation
guidelines above, listed with the course readings); encyclopedias,
dictionaries, and textbooks will not be considered as counting toward
the
requisite minimum number of secondary sources, although, again, they can be
used in your
term paper project and should be listed in your bibliography—but articles
obtained from a NJIT or Rutgers database should be considered as "hard
copy"—feel free to check with me about the
suitability of
such an article or for that matter about any of your possible sources).
It is STRONGLY recommended that research begin with the MLA Bibliography (locally to be found at the Rutgers-Newark library research room--ask a librarian there to show you how it works).
†If you don't know the difference between a primary and secondary source then find out right away; I've provided links here and in our Moodle space that will help you with this and all matters regarding researching and writing a polemical research essay.
N.B.: All papers must be word processed, spell-checked, and to the best of one's ability grammar-checked. If on occasion use is made of the ideas or words of someone else in one's writing—not only in formally submitted papers but all work you submit in this course, including the weekly posts—then the source(s) of those ideas and/or words must be cited; that is, when appropriate, your writing must be fully documented in MLA format (you must cite sources—using footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical documentation, which include specific page numbers keyed to particular passages in your text, and complete bibliographical information). PAPERS NOT MEETING ALL OF THESE REQUIREMENTS WILL NOT BE READ AND WILL NOT RECEIVE CREDIT. Papers must be submitted to the instructor via Canvas only, as attachments, using a proper indentifying subject line.
Keep in mind that academic integrity is the cornerstone of higher education and
is central to the ideals of this course and the university. Cheating is strictly
prohibited and devalues the degree that you are working on. As a member of the
NJIT community, it is your responsibility to protect your educational investment
by knowing and following the academic code of integrity policy that is found at:
http://www5.njit.edu/policies/sites/policies/files/academic-integrity-code.pdf.
Please note that it is my professional obligation and responsibility to report
any academic misconduct to the Dean of Students Office.
Any student found in violation of the code by cheating, plagiarizing or using
any online software inappropriately will result in disciplinary action. This may
include a failing grade of F, and/or suspension or dismissal from the
university.
If you have any questions about the code of Academic Integrity, please contact
the Dean of Students Office at
dos@njit.edu.
COURSE GRADE
COURSE SCHEDULE
(see specific due dates in Canvas)
Week 1:
Introducing ourselves and general introduction
to the course.
Week 2:
"Introduction" to The Classic Slave Narratives,
by Henry Louis Gates, xi-xxx. Selections from The
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the
African, 31-61, 127-40; selections from The
History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, 231-63; selections
from Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,
315-329, 355-72, 385-403; and, selections from Linda Brent's Incidents
in the life of a Slave Girl,
413-17, 446-52, 463-68, 486-90, 525-29, 607-14.
Week 3:
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
Preface and Chapters 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 20, 30, 31, 33, 34, 40, and 44, and
Concluding Remarks.
Week 4: Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, "Explanatory" note and chapters 1-18, 31-36, 40-43 ("Chapter the Last").
Week 5: Selections from W. E. B. Dubois' The Souls of Black Folk, 1-8, 24-42, 104-14, 137-46 ("Forethought," chapters 1, 3, 4, 10, 14, and "The Afterthought").
Week 6 : Richard Wright's Native Son (1939), Book One.
Week 7:
Richard Wright's Native
Son (1939),
Book Two; Book Three, 273-310 (ending with "He lay on the cold floor"), 418-30
(ending with "How Bigger Was Born").
Week 8: Ellison, Invisible Man (Prologue and Chapter 1); Baldwin, "Notes of a Native Son," "Nobody Knows My Name" and “Fifth Avenue, Uptown."
Week 9:
Dutchman
by Leroi Jones / Amiri Baraka.
Week 10: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970), up to p. 93.
Week 11:
The Bluest Eye by
Toni Morrison (1970), remainder of the book, starting with the section titled
"Spring."
Week 12: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson.
Week 13:
Citizen by
Claudia Rankine (2014); The
Nickel Boys by
Colson Whitehead (excerpt).
Week 14:
Oral reports on individual research projects.
Week 15:
Oral
reports on individual research projects.
Week 16: See various assignment due dates.
ABBREVIATIONS FOR MARKING PAPERS
Key: Abbreviation - Meaning
A - Article
Agr - Agreement
Awk - Awkward
CS - Comma Splice
Dic - Diction
Exp - Explain
FS - Fused Sentences
RO - Run On Sentence
SF - Sentence Fragment
Sp - Spelling
SS - Sentence Structure
Syn - Syntax or Word Order
Tr - Transition
Un - Unclear
Uncl - Unclear
Us - Usage
V - Verb
Va - Vague
VF - Verb Form
VT - Verb Tense
WF - Word Form
WW - Wrong Word