SUNY Fredonia
Division of Arts and Humanities
ENGL/WOST 340: Black Women Writers
Spring 2009
Section 1: TTh 2-3:20 pm, Dods 101
Office: Fenton 265; M 10-4, TTh 4-5, W 1-3, and by appointment; 673-3856
E-mail: simon@fredonia.edu (during working hours); brucesimon18@yahoo.com (evenings and weekends)
Web Site: www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/
Course ANGEL Site: https://fredonia.sln.suny.edu/frames.aspx

About the Course Web Pages

This web site is designed to help you get as much out of this course as possible--you can use it to find out how your work will be assessed, what assignments are due and when, how to use the course ANGEL site, and how to use the world-wide web for research, among other things. Please get in the habit of checking back to these pages to keep track of changes to the syllabus and advice on assignments, as well as to surf the ever-expanding list of links to interesting web pages related to the course. And please contact me any time (see above for my coordinates) if you have ideas about how to improve these pages or the course as a whole.

I. Course Description

Study of the literature written by and often about black women, including poetry, short and long fictions, novels, drama, biography, and autobiography from the 18th century to the present.

This section is ENGL/WOST 340 is designed to introduce students to the ways in which black women writers from a variety of locations and time periods wrestle with transnational constructions and intersections of race, gender, nation, class, and more.

ENGL/WOST 340 is an elective for students in the English and Secondary English Education majors and in African American Studies, American Studies, and Women's Studies; it also satisfies Part 12 of the College Core Curriculum (CCC).

II. Rationale

In ENGL 340, as in most courses offered by the English Department, students from a range of majors, minors, and concentrations interact, and the goals of the professional programs are integrated with specific course and CCC goals. Achieving these goals (described in Section IV below) will require us to foster academic skills and intellectual habits of reading closely and carefully, thinking critically and creatively, listening actively and attentively, speaking thoughtfully and concisely, and writing clearly and analytically--skills and habits useful to everyone, but of particular importance to future teachers.

III. Texts. There are nine books in the campus bookstore for you to purchase:

• Maryse Conde, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
• Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory
• Buchi Emecheta The Joys of Motherhood
• Henry Louis Gates and Nellie McKay, eds., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2nd ed.) [NAAL]
• Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place
• Andrea Lee, Sarah Phillips
• Toni Morrison, A Mercy

IV. Course Objectives and Outcomes

This course is designed to give students the opportunity to develop a critical or analytical approach to the study of black women writers; to develop their ability to read and respond to a variety of primary sources with understanding and to integrate knowledge from different sources, their awareness of historical contexts for black women's writings, their understanding of contemporary U.S. society (as refined through attention to the contemporary implications or ramifications of black women's literature, culture, and history), and their understanding of values and/or assumptions we bring to the study of black women writers; and to develop the curiosity to explore black women's literature, culture, and history further. To achieve these goals, students will

• read, interpret, and generate questions and observations about assigned materials (SLO #1: "English majors will read attentively, closely, and critically");
• share and discuss their questions and observations on the course ANGEL site and in the classroom (SLO #1 and #2: "English majors will write thoughtfully, coherently, and persuasively");
• write a critical essay to develop skills in literary analysis (SLO #1 and #2);
• prepare and present a group discussion-leading project to develop their skills in interpretation, research, presentation, and discussion (SLO #1, #2, and #3: "English majors will develop and challenge their own thinking through scholarly research");
• research and write a final project that integrates what they have learned in the course (SLO #1, #2, #3).

V. Instructional Methods and Activities

The methods used in the classroom will include lecture, in-class writing, guided discovery, open discussion, various kinds of cooperative group work, and other critical thinking- and active learning-oriented activities.

VI. Evaluation and Grade Assignment

A. Methods

Attendance/Preparation/Participation (15%). Regular attendance and thoughtful participation are crucial to your enjoyment of and success in this course. If there is absolutely no way for you to avoid missing a class, please contact me ahead of time or soon after your absence, preferably by email. More important than showing up on time, of course, is coming to class prepared and focused. I expect you to read what has been assigned for a given date at least once (and preferably more than that!) by the time we begin to discuss it in class, and to familiarize yourself with and think about the postings on the course ANGEL site's discussion board and on American Identities, the course blog (described below and in Section VIIIB). This is a discussion rather than a lecture course, after all; although I will provide some context for and interpretations of our reading, the bulk of class time will be spent in small- or large-group discussions and activities. Since it's difficult to make good contributions to discussions about a literary work if you haven't read it carefully or thought about it extensively, how well you budget your time outside of class will to a large degree determine how well you do in this class in general and how well you do on this portion of your course grade in particular.

Your grade for this segment of the course will be based on a combination of your attendance and your preparation/participation in class and on the course ANGEL site and/or blog. As there are no exams in this course, think of my evaluation of your preparation/participation as a different but equally important method of assessing your overall performance and improvement in the course. The quality of your online participation and preparation for your written and oral assignments will be factored into this grade. Due to the reliance on attendance of many aspects of preparation and participation, more than two unexcused absences will hurt your preparation/participation/team work grade and each non-emergency absence after the fourth will lower your final course grade by one grade (e.g., with five such absences, a B+ will become a C+; with six, it will become a D+).

Online Participation (15%). Detailed instructions for using the course ANGEL site (fredonia.sln.suny.edu/frames.aspx) are given below (see Section VIIIB) and will be discussed in class. We will be using the site to distribute announcements, provide research and other resources, and collect certain assignments, so be in the habit of checking it regularly. To supplement and prepare for our class discussions and activities, as well as continue them after the end of class, I have created a discussion board on our course ANGEL space. You should use it to develop your writing and critical thinking skills, demonstrate your engagement with the course material, and consider and respond to others' ideas and interpretations. For instance, you can, among other things,

• post a specific question about one of the readings;
• pick up and develop a topic of conversation from our in-class discussions;
• share an insight from a small-group discussion or activity that those outside your team didn't have the chance to hear;
• introduce a new topic of conversation that you feel is relevant to the course;
• connect materials you find in print or online to texts and issues in the course;
• or respond to someone else's previously-posted question, idea, topic, connection, or reaction.

Over the course of the semester, I will keep track of the timing, amount, and quality of your posts to the discussion board, including the quality of the ensuing online discussions initiated by them; 0-4 posts will earn you a zero, 5-9 posts an F, 10-14 a D, 15-19 a C, 20-24 a B, and 25+ an A on this segment of your final grade. Posts to American Identities, the course blog, will be added to your total (how much depends on their quality). For further information on the course ANGEL space's discussion board and the course blog, including more specific requirements and extensive advice, go to www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/bww/op.htm.

Critical Essay (20%). I will provide detailed information on the 4-to-6-page critical essay on the course web site at www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/bww/ce.htm.

Group Discussion-Leading Project (20%). I will provide detailed information on the 30-to-60-minute discussion-leading project on the course web site at www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/bww/gdlp.htm.

Final Research Project (30%). I will provide detailed information on the 8-to-12-page final project on the course web site at www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/bww/frp.htm. Possibilities include a research-based critical essay, a research-based pedagogical essay, a research-based creative project with author's note, or a research-based web authoring project. We will arrange for a mandatory individual conference on your final project topic after spring break.

B. Grading. All work during the semester will be graded on a letter basis (A=outstanding, B=good, C=average, D=bad, F=awful) and converted into a number for purposes of calculating final grades. I use the following conversion system (the number in parentheses is the "typical" or "normal" conversion, but any number in the range may be assigned to a given letter grade):

A+=97-100 (98); A=93-96.99 (95); A-=90-92.99 (91); B+=87-89.99 (88); B=83-86.99 (85); B-=80-82.99 (81); C+=77-79.99 (78); C=73-76.99 (75); C-=70-72.99 (71); D+=67-69.99 (68); D=63-66.99 (65); D-=60-62.99 (61); F=0-59.99 (55)

Your final grade is determined by converting the weighted numerical average of the above assignments into a letter grade, according to the above scale.

C. Portfolio. English and English Adolescence Education majors should be aware of the English department's guidelines for ongoing portfolio submissions.

VII. Bibliography.

A. Contemporary References

• Michael Awkward, Inspiriting Influences: Tradition, Revision, and Afro-American Women's Novels
• Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Feminism and "Race"
• Jacqueline Bobo, Black Women as Cultural Readers
• Carole Boyce-Davies, Black Women, Writing, and Identity: Migrations of the Subject
• --, et al., eds., Moving Beyond Boundaries: International Dimensions of Black Women's Writing
• Jennifer DeVere Brody, Impossible Purities: Blackness, Femininity, and Victorian Culture
• Hazel Carby, Cultures in Babylon: Black Britain and African America
• Barbara Christian, et al., eds., New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000
• Angela Y. Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
• Ann Douglass, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s
• Madhu Dubey, Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic
• Farah J. Griffin, "Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative
• Darlene Clark Hine and Jacqueline McLeod, eds., Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora
• Karla F.C. Holloway, Moorings and Metaphors: Figures of Culture and Gender in Black Women's Literature
• Tommie Lee Jackson, An Invincible Summer: Female Diasporean Writers
• June Jordan, Technical Difficulties
• Samira Kawash, Dislocating the Color Line
• Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest
• Valerie Smith, Not Just Race, Not Just Gender
• Hortense Spillers, Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex, and Nationality in the Modern Text
• Melissa Walker, Down from the Mountaintop: Black Women's Novels in the Wake of the Civil Rights Movement, 1966-1989
• Robyn Wiegman, American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender
• Patricia Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights
• --, The Rooster's Egg

B. Classic References

• Michael Awkward, Inspiriting Influences: Tradition, Revision, and African-American Women's Novels
• Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films
• Joanne Braxton and Andree Nicola McLaughlin, eds., Wild Women in the Whirlwind: Afra-American Culture and the Contemporary Literary Renaissance
• Toni Cade (Bambara), The Black Woman
• Hazel Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Women Novelist
• Barbara Christian, Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers
• --, Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976
• Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
• Angela Davis, Women, Culture, and Politics
• --, Women, Race, and Class
• Gina Dent, ed., Black Popular Culture
• Mari Evans, ed., Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Figures in Black
• --, ed., Reading Black, Reading Feminist
• Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter
• Darlene Clark Hine, Wilma King, and Linda Reed, "We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible": A Reader in Black Women's History
• bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman
• --,Talking Back
• --, Yearning
• Gloria T. Hull, Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
• --, Patrica Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds., All the Women Are White, All the Men Are Black, But Some of Us Are Brave
• June Jordan, On Call
• Marjorie Pryse and Hortense Spillers, eds., Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, and the Literary Tradition
• Barbara Smith, Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
• Claudia Tate, ed., Black Women Writers at Work
• Gloria Wade-Gayles, No Crystal Stair: Visions of Race and Sex in Black Women's Fiction
• Cheryl Wall, ed., Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women
• Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman
• --, Invisibility Blues
• Mary Helen Washington, Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women, 1860-1960
• Susan Willis, Specifying: Black Women Writing the American Experience

C. Key Journals

• African American Review
• American Literary History
• American Literature
• American Quarterly
• Callaloo
• MELUS
• PMLA

VIII. Course Schedule and Policies

A. Tentative Course Schedule. The following course schedule is subject to revision--please refer here regularly for updates to this schedule, as well as to the course ANGEL site for notes on the texts and suggestions for further reading. It's expected that you'll make use of the links page to prepare for class discussion. In class, we'll largely be focusing on interpretive, comparative, and evaluative issues, guided by previous online and in-class discussion topics. Please recall that you need to submit 25 original posts to the ANGEL discussion board to earn an A for the online participation segment of your final grade (see Section VI). (Key: NAAL=The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.)

Images and Identities

T 1/27 introductions; set-up
Th 1/29 Ta-Nehisi Coates, "American Girl," The Atlantic (January/February 2009); Andrew Ross, "The Gangsta and the Diva," The Nation (August 22/24 1994) [available in Lessons area on course ANGEL space]

T 2/3 1845: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Ch. 1 (NAAL 395-398); 1920: W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Damnation of Women" (NAAL 766-777); 1922, 1923, 1934, 1949: Langston Hughes, "Mother to Son," "Jazzonia," "When Sue Wears Red," "Song for a Dark Girl," "The Blues I'm Playing," and "Song for Billie Holiday" (NAAL 1292, 1293, 1299, 1315-1325, 1307); 1923: Jean Toomer (from Cane), "Karintha," "Carma," "Fern," "Blood Burning Moon," "Avey," and "Bona and Paul" (NAAL 1170-1171, 1175-1176, 1177-1180, 1186-1191, 1193-1197, 1213-1219); 1948: Robert Hayden, "Homage to the Empress of the Blues" (NAAL 1519-1520)
Th 2/5 1773, 1774, 1776: Phillis Wheatley, "To Maecenas," "On Being Brought from Africa to America," "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth," "To Samson Occom," and "To His Excellency General Washington" (NAAL 217-218, 219-220, 221-222, 225-226); 1853, 1854, 1857, 1872, 1895: Frances E.W. Harper, "Ethiopia," "The Slave Mother," "Vashti," "Aunt Chloe's Politics," and "Songs for the People" (NAAL 494, 496-499, 500, 503-504); 1923, 1927: Gwendolyn Bennett, "Heritage" and "To a Dark Girl" (NAAL 1267-1268); 1927: Helene Johnson, "Poem" and "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem" (NAAL 1352-1353); 1937: Margaret Walker, "For My People" (NAAL 1619-1620); 1945, 1949, 1960: Gwendolyn Brooks, "kitchenette building," "the mother," "a song in the front yard," "Sadie and Maud," "Maxie Allen," and "The Children of the Poor," and "We Real Cool" (NAAL 1625-1627, 1632, 1633-1635, 1638); 1964, 1969: Mari Evans, "Status Symbol" and "I Am a Black Woman" (NAAL 1851-1852); 1968: Nikki Giovanni, "For Saundra" and "Nikki-Rosa" (NAAL 2096-2097, 2098); 1969, 1974: Sonia Sanchez, "homecoming," "poem at thirty," "for our lady," "Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict" and from A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women (NAAL 1964-1967); 1976, 1978: Audre Lorde, "Coal" and "A Litany for Survival" (NAAL 1922, 1923-1924); 1978: Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" (NAAL 2156-2157); 1978, 1983: Ntozake Shange, "Nappy Edges" and "Bocas: A Daughter's Geography" (NAAL 2556-2559); 1980: June Jordan, "Poem about My Rights" (NAAL 2019-2021); 1985: Michelle Cliff, "Within the Veil" (NAAL 2505-2508)

T 2/10 1851, 1878: Sojourner Truth, "Ar'n't I a Woman?" (NAAL 246-249); 1892: Anna Julia Cooper, "Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race" (NAAL 636-650); 1925: Marita Bonner, "On Being Young--A Woman--and Colored" (NAAL 1244-1247); 1928: Zora Neale Hurston, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (NAAL 1030-1033); 1974: Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" (NAAL 2430-2437); 1977: Audre Lorde, "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" (NAAL 1924-1926); 1983: Paule Marshall, "The Making of a Writer: from the Poets in the Kitchen" (NAAL 2189-2195); 1985: June Jordan, "The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America or Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley" (available in Lessons area of course ANGEL space)
Th 2/12 1962: Paule Marshall, "Reena" (NAAL 2169-2182); 1971: Toni Cade Bambara, "Raymond's Run" (NAAL 2077-2082); 1973: Alice Walker, "Everyday Use" (NAAL 2437-2442)

Legacies of Slavery and Empire

T 2/17 1861: Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Preface-Ch. II (NAAL 280-287); 1868: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, Preface-Ch. II (NAAL 366-375); 1987: Toni Morrison, "The Site of Memory" (NAAL 2290-2299); 2008: Toni Morrison, A Mercy 1-42
Th 2/19 1861: Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Ch. V, X, XIV (NAAL 287-295); 2008: Toni Morrison, A Mercy 43-100

T 2/24 1861: Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Ch. XVII, XXI, XXIX, XXXIX, XL, XLI (NAAL 295-315); 1868: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, Ch. III-IV (NAAL 375-384); 2008: Toni Morrison, A Mercy 101-167
Th 2/26 1986: Maryse Conde, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Part I, Ch. 1-12 (1-86)

T 3/3 1986: Maryse Conde, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Part II, Ch. 1-15 (87-172)
Th 3/5 1986: Maryse Conde, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Epilogue-Afterword (173-225) and Angela Davis, "Foreword" (ix-xi)

T 3/10 1988: Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place 1-38
Th 3/12 1988: Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place 39-81

M 3/16-F 3/20 NO CLASSES--Spring Break

Intersections of Race and Gender

T 3/24 1937: Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ch. 1-9 (9-143)
Th 3/26 1937: Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ch. 10-15 (144-206)

M 3/30 CRITICAL ESSAY due no later than 11:30 pm in the dropbox in the Lessons area of the course ANGEL space
T 3/31 1937: Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ch. 16-20 (207-286)
Th 4/2 1953: Gwendolyn Brooks, Maud Martha (NAAL 1649-1696)

T 4/7 1979: Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood, Ch. 1-9 (7-110)
Th 4/9 1979: Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood, Ch. 10-18 (111-224)

T 4/14 1994: Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory, Ch. 1-27 (7-174)
Th 4/16 1994: Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory, Ch. 28-Afterword (175-236)

Comparative European Experiences

T 4/21 1928: Nella Larsen, Quicksand, Ch. 1-11 (NA 1086-1123)
Th 4/23 1928: Nella Larsen, Quicksand, Ch. 12-25 (NA 1123-1167)

M 4/27 CRITICAL ESSAY due no later than 11:30 pm in the dropbox in the Lessons area of the course ANGEL space (if not turned in for previous unit)
T 4/28 1977: Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy 1-82
Th 4/30 1977: Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy 83-134

T 5/5 1984: Andrea Lee, Sarah Phillips 1-117; reflections, wrap-up, course evaluations
Th 5/7 meet at Rosch Recital Hall for English Department Mary Louise White Symposium Roundtable

F 5/15 1:30-3:30 pm: Optional Extra-Credit presentation/peer review session for FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT, which is due in ANGEL FRP drop box by 11:30 pm

B. Class Policies

1. Attendance. As stated in Section VI above, barring emergencies each absence after the fourth will lower your final course grade by one grade. Be aware that absences due to emergencies are the only absences that will not be counted toward your total for the semester. Emergencies include but are not limited to death in the family, hospitalization or serious illness, natural disasters, and snow days; scheduled and unavoidable school-sponsored events (games, meets, performances, etc.) are also counted as emergencies for the purpose of this attendance policy. Besides emergencies, the only other absences that won't affect your participation/preparation grade are excused absences. Please notify the instructor over email, in advance if possible and, if not, as soon after the absence as possible, if you wish an absence to be considered as an emergency or excused absence; the decision will be made at the instructor's discretion.

2. Online Participation. Please familiarize yourself with the college's "Computer and Network Usage Policy" (Undergraduate Catalog 2007-2009, pp. 240-247) and check with me first before posting something to the discussion board on the ANGEL site that is not directly related to the course. If you wish to join the American Identities blog as a co-author, please send me your email address and the name (real, shortened, or invented) you plan to be blogging under. I'll send an invitation to join the blog to that email address and let you know how many discussion board posts each blog post you do is equivalent to.

3. Late Assignments. Only students who ask for an extension at least two days before the due date of any assignment will be granted an extension. For everyone else, late work is penalized by a grade off per day late.

4. Plagiarism and Academic Integrity. To plagiarize is "to steal and pass off as one's own the ideas or words of another" (Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary). SUNY Fredonia strongly condemns plagiarism and takes severe action against those who plagiarize. Disciplinary action may extend to suspension from privileges or expulsion from college. Please familiarize yourself with the college's "Academic Integrity Policy" (Undergraduate Catalog 2007-2009, pp. 236-239, see also p. 222) and check with your instructor if you have any questions about it.

5. Students with Disabilities. If you have a documented disability, please see our Office of Disability Support Services in the Learning Center at Reed Library (www.fredonia.edu/tlc/DSS/dss.htm).

6. Cell Phones. Please turn them off before you enter the class. I'll be holding onto any phones that buzz or ring for the duration of the class.

ENGL/WOST 340: Black Women Writers, Spring 2009
Created: 2/3/09 1:00 pm
Last modified: 5/4/09 12:46 pm
Webmaster: Bruce Simon, Associate Professor of English, SUNY Fredonia