Course greeting & introduction
-- read through paper & on-line Course Syllabus; read through on-line Course Policies
-- read through Course Packet pp. 3-6 on Reading Actively; these pages provide examples of what "active reading" means and looks like; readng this material now will help you in all subsequent reading for class
-- read Course Packet pp. 17-32 Toni Morrison's "Black Matters," an excerpt from her book of essays Playing in the Dark. This essay presents us a starting point for how we can/will approach our literature readings this semester. Morrison discusses the creation of identity for black Americans through literature, and how a fabricated sense of "blackness" was necessary to uphold and define a corallary sense of "whiteness." Morrison speculates on what it might mean to approach literature with this framework fully in mind, and maybe to approach literature the other way around.
-- read Course Packet pp.33-45 Stuart Hall's "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Hall is an Anglo-Caribbean theorist and critic, who's influenced a good deal of black thinking to extend beyond national borders and instead to think of a larger black world that shares the diaspora experience. In his essay he mentions several other theorists and their relevant ideas, and invites us to (re)consider our notions of "identity" and what comprises identity specifically for black people scattered throughout the world.
-- before actually entering the time period prescribed for this course, we need perspective on what came before. To this end, read in Norton pp. 1170-1174 the bio on George Samuel Schuyler, and his influential essay "The Negro-Art Hokum." The biographical notes explain the context of Schuyler's essay.
-- read in Norton pp. 1251-1254, the bio notes on Langston Hughes, and then, in order, his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" pp. 1267-1271, and later poems "Ballad of the Landlord," "Juke Box Love Song," "Dream Boogie," the famous "Harlem," "Motto," and "Theme for English B" which I'll have to give as a handout. We'll discuss Hughes' essay as both a response to Schuyler's essay and a projection of Hughes' own for what constitutes black arts and artists; then we'll discuss his poems in light of his manifesto.(Some of this may spill over to tomorrow.)
-- e-mail: remember to submit to me (nickym@melczarek.net) by tonight a brief self-introduction, containing:
-- read in Norton the editors' historical background "Realism, Naturalism, Modernism 1940-1960" pp. 1319-1328. Possible quiz material here as we frame the history that produced the writing we'll read for the next few weeks.
-- read in Norton pp. 1376-1388, the bio notes for Richard Wright, as well as Wright's "Blueprint for Negro Writing." We already have some idea what Wright was about when he wrote this, and the influence Wright held over subsequent black writers and definitions of black art and literature.The editors' history and Wright's manifesto will set the stage for oour discussion of excerpts from Wright's autobiography Black Boy tomorrow.
-- read in Norton pp.1450-1467, excerpts from Wright's autobiography Black Boy. We'll see how Wright viewed his early years, how he negotiatied a relatinship between black writing/art and Marxism/Communism, and his materialist analysis of black identity and experience in a racist, capitalist U.S.
-- read in Norton pp. 1476-1484, bio on Anne Petry, and her short story "Like a Winding Sheet." We're already familiar with Petry as a disciple of Wright, and can compare/contrast her version of social realism to Wright's.
-- read in Norton pp. 1497-1515, bio on Robert Hayden, and the poems included on those pages. We'll pay especial attention to "The Diver" (compare to Adrienne Rich's poem "Diving into the Wreck" sometime?), "Middle Passage," "Oh Daedalus, Fly Away Home" (as an invocation of African myths of flight and escape; compare to Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon?), "Runagate Runagate," "El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz" and "A Letter from Phillis Wheatley." We'll discuss the culturl influences/references Hayden's poems invoke, as well as their own variety of social realism.
-- read in Norton pp. 1515-1518, bio material on Ralph Ellison, and Ellison's novel Invisible Man, his introduction and at least through p.195. We'll have already discussed in class this choice of novel. We can already begin considering the implications Ellison's title as a discussion of identity for blacks in the U.S., and in terms we encountered in Morrison's "Black Matters" and Hall's "Cultural Identity and Diaspora."
-- we'll continue discussing Ellison's Invisible Man.
-- we'll finish discussing Ellison's Invisible Man (if we haven't already -- if we wrap things up on this novel by Wedneday, then we'll use today to review concepts).
-- read in Norton pp. 1650-1654, bio on James Baldwin, and pp. 1694-1717 Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues." We'll discuss Wright's influence on Baldwin, as well as focus on jazz (not for the first time) as a cultural mode for the black world.
-- to facilitate discussion, I suggest perusing the two examples of literay/historical commentary on "Sonny's Blues" included in your course packet, pp.75-85: John Reilly's " 'Sonny's Blues': James Baldwin's Image of Black Community" and Sherley Willaims' "The Black Musician: The Black Hero as Light-Bearer." These two pieces exemplify early attempts to explicate Baldwin's text(s), and to connect the creative realms of black music and writing.