Reading and Meeting Schedule: (spring 2010)

Tuesday, 19 January: Introductions, assignments. American Dream & Dr. King's "Dream" speech

Readings:

selection from Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (1925) (representing American Dream / Immigrant Narrative)

selections from The Declaration of Independence (1776)

selections from "I have a dream . . . "  speech by Martin Luther King at March on Washington, 28 August 1963

African American literature

Tuesday, 26 January: begin slave narratives

Reading Assignments

selections from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano . . . the African by Olaudah Equiano (London, 1789)

Reading discussion leader: Ayme Christian

Poetry: Jupiter Hammon, "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penetential Cries"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: instructor

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

• Is "the Dream" (obj. 3a) a discernible narrative pattern? Identify elements in examples, esp. Douglass's speech by the Chesapeake Bay (chapter 10). What about actual dreams in Equiano and elsewhere?
   

• How do slave narratives exemplify the minority narrative (obj. 1a)? How different from the immigrant / American Dream story?
   

• Both Douglass and Equiano come from pre-literate, traditional, rural cultures, but are desperate to learn literacy, change their condition, and visit cities. Identify these contrasting elements. Literary significance of literacy? Culture studies?
   

• Douglass's Narrative is widely considered the greatest slave narrative and a classic text of American literature. What literary qualities can be identified for this distinction?

• How do Douglass’s language and culture/style swing from mainstream to minority?
   

• Equiano visited mainland English colonies only once (Philadelphia), otherwise a Caribbean slave; narrative published London 1789 (year of US Constitution). How is his experience more typical of a Caribbean slave than a southern US slave?
   

• Manifestations of "the Color Code" in Equiano and Douglass?

Obj. 1d. “The Color Code”

• Literature represents the extremely sensitive subject of skin color infrequently or indirectly.

• Western civilization transfers values associated with “light and dark”—e. g., good & evil, rational / irrational—to people of light or dark complexions, with implications for power, validity, sexuality, etc.

• This course mostly treats minorities as a historical phenomenon, but the biological or visual aspect of human identity may be more immediate and direct than history. People most comfortably interact with others who look like themselves or their family.

• Skin color matters, but how much varies by circumstances.

Tuesday, 2 February: conclude slave narratives, begin Song of Solomon

Reading Assignments:

selections from Incidents in Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (Boston 1861)

begin Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, chapters 1 & 2 (through p. 55?)

Reading discussion leader (Incidents): Suzan Damas

Poetry: Langston Hughes, "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)"; "Dream Variations"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Catherine Louvier

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

• How does Jacobs's gender complicate her minority status? Compare Douglass & Equiano
• How does it affect her storytelling? Her voice? Subjects & audiences she addresses?
• Jacobs's figurative writing often resorts to "the Color Code" (obj. 1d)--pro or con?

Song of Solomon

• Compared to the slave narratives, what are some markers of Morrison's style and high literary quality?
• What relation between "literary" qualities and "minority" issues? Which is foremost?
• obj. 3a: "dream" narrative + sub-category: "Flying Africans"--persistent legend / myth in African American culture that original people could fly--repeated in much contemporary literature

+ reaction to online readings

Tuesday, 9 February: continue Song of Solomon

Reading Assignments: Song of Solomon, chapters 3-9, pp. 56-216(?) (complete part 1, up to part 2)

Reading discussion leader: Laura Moseley

Web-highlight (research posts):

Poetry: Countee Cullen, "Incident" & "For a Poet"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: instructor

(Question for poems: Why is "Incident" more familiar from school anthologies and teaching than "For a Poet?")

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Continue questions from 2 Feb:

• Morrison's style and high literary quality? > esp. characterization
• What relation between "literary" qualities and "minority" issues? Which is foremost?
• obj. 3a: "dream" narrative + sub-category: "Flying Africans"--persistent legend / myth in African American culture that original people could fly--repeated in much contemporary literature

Color Code? (obj. 1d)

Tuesday, 16 February: Conclude Song of Solomon

Reading Assignments: complete Song of Solomon (through part 2, through p. 337?)

Reading discussion leader: Christine Ford

Web-highlight: instructor (midterms)

Poetry: Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Denielle Alexander

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Midterm & research plan due by email b/w Wednesday, 24 February & Monday, 1 March

Midterm & Research Plan Assignment

Tuesday, 23 February:

Reading Assignments:

North American Indian Origin Stories

Reading discussion leader: Omar Syed

begin Black Elk Speaks: chapters I-V (pp. 1-66); chapter VII (77-91).

Reading discussion leader: Barbara Trevino

Instructor: Iroquois Great Law of Peace incl. Wampum

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Tuesday, 2 March:

Reading Assignments:

Black Elk Speaks: chapters VII-XIII (pp. 92-161); chapter XVII-end including appendices (pp. 194-298); selections from The Black Elk Reader (handout)

Reading discussion leader:

Poetry: Peter Blue Cloud, "Crazy Horse Monument"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Samuel Mathis

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

First Research Post due b/w 3-8 March

Tuesday, 9 March:

Reading Assignments:

Love Medicine through “A Bridge” (ends on p. 180)

Report: Louise Erdrich & Dartmouth College (confer w/ prof)

Reporter: Julie Garza

(replaces Reading discussion leader; may coordinate with research project, but not required):

Poetry: Louise Erdrich, “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Amy Sidle

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Tuesday, 16 March: spring holidays

Tuesday, 23 March:

Reading Assignments:

Love Medicine (complete)

Reading discussion leader: Deanna Scott

Poetry: Simon J. Ortiz, “The Margins Where We Live”

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Jennifer Huebenthal

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Mexican American Literature

Tuesday, 30 March:

Reading Assignments:

Story of the Virgin of Guadalupe

Bless Me, Ultima through p. 105 or chapter Diez

Reading discussion leader: Rachel Risinger

Poetry: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, "You Men"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Mallory Rogers (more biography than usual?)

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Tuesday, 6 April:

Reading Assignments: Bless Me, Ultima (pp. 106-262; chapters Once through Veintidos)

Reading discussion leader: Helena Suess

Poetry: Jimmy Santiago Baca, "Green Chile"

Poetry reader / discussion leader:

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Tuesday, 13 April:

Reading Assignments: Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek, through p. 83 (i. e., through “Never Marry a Mexican”)

Reading discussion leader: Melissa Garza

Poetry: Pat Mora, "Senora X No More"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Tanya Stanley

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Completed Research Options Due 14-19 April:
2nd Research Post, Research Paper, or Research Journal

Tuesday, 20 April:

Reading Assignments: Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek (complete)

Reading discussion leader: Sarah McCall DeLaRosa

(Begin Gay Literature)

Poetry: Walt Whitman, "In Paths Untrodden"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Juan Garcia

Poetry: W. H. Auden, "Lullabye"

Poetry reader / discussion leader:

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Tuesday, 27 April:

Reading Assignments:

The Best Little Boy in the World

Reading discussion leader: Barbara Trevino

Web-highlighter (final exams):

Poetry: Frank O'Hara, "My Heart"

Poetry reader / discussion leader:

Instructor's Discussion Questions:

Tuesday, 4 May:  Final exam

Course Objectives:

(to be revised as semester progresses)

("Objectives" are the ideas and terms developed and reinforced throughout the semester in lectures, discussions, presentations, and examinations. In terms of learning outcomes, this course should enable you to explain these ideas and discuss minority literature in these terms.)

Objective 1
To define the “minority concept" as a power relationship modeled by some ethnic groups’ historical relation to the dominant American culture.

1a. “Involuntary (or forced) participation”
(Unlike the dominant immigrant culture, ethnic minorities did not choose to come to America or join its dominant culture. Thus the original "social contract" of Native Americans and African Americans contrasts with that of European Americans, Asian Americans, or most Latin Americans, and the consequences of "choice" or "no choice" echo down the generations.)

1b.  “Voiceless and choiceless”
(Contrast the dominant culture’s self-determination or choice through self-expression or voice, as in "The Declaration of Independence.")

1c. To observe alternative identities and literary strategies developed by minority cultures and writers to gain voice and choice:

·        “double language” (same words, different meanings to different audiences)

·        using the dominant culture’s words against them

·        conscience to dominant culture (which otherwise forgets the past).

1d. “The Color Code”

• Literature represents the extremely sensitive subject of skin color infrequently or indirectly.

• Western civilization transfers values associated with “light and dark”—e. g., good & evil, rational / irrational—to people of light or dark complexions, with implications for power, validity, sexuality, etc.

• This course mostly treats minorities as a historical phenomenon, but the biological or visual aspect of human identity may be more immediate and direct than history. People most comfortably interact with others who look like themselves or their family.

• Skin color matters, but how much varies by circumstances.

Objective 2
To observe representations and narratives (images and stories) of ethnicity and gender as a means of defining minority categories.

2a. Is the status of women, lesbians, and homosexuals analogous to that of ethnic minorities in terms of voice and choice? Do "women of color" become "double minorities?"

2b. To detect "class" as a repressed subject of American discourse.
·        “You can tell you’re an American if you can’t talk about class.”

·        American culture officially regards itself as "classless."

·        Race and gender may replace class divisions of power, labor, or "place."

·        Class may remain identifiable in signs or markers of power and prestige or their absence.

·        High class status in the USA is often marked by plainness, simplicity, or lack of visibility.

2c. "Quick check" on minority status: What is the individual’s or group’s relation to the law or other dominant institutions? Does "the law" make things better or worse?

Objective 3
To compare and contrast the dominant “American Dream” narrative—which involves voluntary participation, forgetting the past, and privileging the individual—with alternative narratives of American minorities, which involve involuntary participation, connecting to the past, and traditional (extended) or alternative families.

Tabular summary of contrasts between the dominant culture's "American Dream" narrative and minority narratives (still Objective 3)

3a. African American alternative narrative: “The Dream”

3b. Native American Indian alternative narrative: "Loss and Survival"

3c. Mexican American narrative: “The Ambivalent Minority”

3a. African American alternative narrative: “The Dream”
("The Dream" resembles but is not identical to "The American Dream." Whereas the American Dream emphasizes immediate individual success, "the Dream" factors in setbacks, the need to rise again, and a quest for group dignity.)

3b. Native American Indian alternative narrative: "Loss and Survival"
(Whereas immigrants define themselves by leaving the past behind in order to get America, the Indians once had America but lost it along with many of their people. Yet they defy the myth of "the vanishing Indian," instead choosing to "survive," sometimes in faith that the dominant culture will eventually destroy itself, and the forests and buffalo will return.)

3c. Mexican American narrative: “The Ambivalent Minority”
("Ambivalent" means having "mixed feelings" or contradictory attitudes. Mexican Americans may exemplify immigrant culture as individuals or families who come to America for economic gain but suffer social dislocation. On the other hand, much of Mexico's historic experience with the USA resembles the experience of the Native Americans: much of the United States, including Texas, was once Mexico. Does a Mexican who moves from Juarez to El Paso truly immigrate?)

Objective 4

To register the minority dilemma of assimilation or resistance—i. e., do you fight or join the culture that oppressed you? What balance do minorities strike between economic benefits and personal or cultural sacrifices?

 4a. To identify the "new American" who crosses, combines, or confuses ethnic or gender identities (e. g., Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, K. D. Lang, Dennis Rodman, RuPaul, David Bowie)

 4b. To distinguish the ideology of American racialism—which sees races as pure, separate, and permanent identities—from American practice, which always involves hybridity (or mixing) and change.

 Tabular summary of 4b

Objective 5
To study the influence of minority writers and speakers on literature, literacy, and language.

5a.  To discover the power of poetry and fiction to help "others" hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience.

5b. To assess the status of minority writers in the "canon" of what is read and taught in schools (plus the criteria determining such status).

5c. To regard literacy as the primary code of modern existence and a key or path to empowerment.

5d. To note development and variations of standard English by minority writers and speakers.

5e. To emphasize how all speakers and writers may use common devices of human language to make poetry, including narrative, poetic devices, double language,  and figures of speech.

5f. To generalize the "Dominant-Minority" relation to philosophical or syntactic categories of "Subject & Object," in which the "subject" is self-determining and active in terms of "voice and choice," while the "object" is acted upon, passive, or spoken for rather than acting and speaking.

Objective 6
To observe images of the individual, the family, and alternative families in the writings and experience  of minority groups.

6a. Generally speaking, minority groups place more emphasis on “traditional” or “community” aspects of human society, such as extended families or alternative families, and they mistrust “institutions.” The dominant culture celebrates individuals and nuclear families and identifies more with dominant-cultural institutions or its representatives, like law enforcement officers, teachers, bureaucrats, etc. (Much variation, though.)

6b. To question sacred modern concepts like "individuality" and "rights" and politically correct ideas like minorities as "victims"; to explore emerging postmodern identities, e. g. “biracial,” “global,” and “post-national.”

  Objective 7
To survey minority representations of the USA's “dominant” culture.

 7a. Primary definition: "American Dream" or "Immigrant" culture.

7b. To observe shifting names or identities of the dominant culture in relation to different minority cultures:

(Tabular summary for Objective 7b)

Summer 2010 LITR 5731 Seminar in Multicultural Literature

"American Immigrant Literature"

M, T, Th 3-6pm, 1st 5-wks session

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