english 180

the slave narrative tradition, spring 2003

Dr. Lori Askeland ▪ Hollenbeck 123 ▪ Off.Hrs: MW 1:45-3; TTh 12-2 + appt ▪ 327-7061 ▪ laskeland@wittenberg.edu

No institution has ever existed that was so seemingly antithetical to literature as that of American slavery. Yet, despite extraordinary, even impossible obstacles, hundreds of enslaved persons fought for their literacy and arguably created the first new, distinctly American literary form, the slave narrative, starting from the 18th century.  In 1966, Arna Bontemps noted that "From the [slave] narrative came the spirit and vitality and angle of vision responsible for the most effective prose writing by black American writers from William Wells Brown to Charles W. Chesnutt, from W.E.B. DuBois to Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin."  To that illustrious list many would add several women writers in black literary history, including Harriet Wilson, Frances E.W. Harper, Zora Neale Hurston, and Margaret Walker, not to mention the numerous men and women writers who have drawn from this same spirit and vitality since Bontemps's statement was made, including  those on our syllabus.  Indeed, the masterworks of many white writers--Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, and William Faulkner--clearly drew from these writing, although they often struggled, not always gracefully, to come to terms with their part of the racial divisions that have defined this tradition since its inception.      

    In addition to examining several slave narratives that have helped to define the genre, this course will examine several more recent works of African American literature that I see as clearly rising out of this tradition.  About the 2^nd week of class you will form groups that will 1) create a handout—which will be posted on the course webpage—for one work including discussion questions, relevant biographical information, internet links, etc., and 2) “teach” a 45 minute class period.  Each member of the group will, in addition, write a brief 1-2 page individual report on the group’s activity,  and what he/she learned about the source worked on. Then, because there are so many other ways that this course could be structured, for a final project each student will briefly present to the class (5-7 minutes!) one work of her choice that also rises directly out of this tradition or, at least, explores similar themes, and you will write your final paper on that topic.  Your presentation and paper must explore connections to three other works read in this course.  The outside work you choose for this project can be anything, by an artist of any race, so long as you can make the connection: any kind of music, poetry, a novel, a TV documentary, a short story, additional slave narratives, a movie, advertisements, whatever.  I will make a list of possibilities that I will share with the class, but also keep your eyes open all semester long for possibilities.  

Crafts, Hannah. The Bondswoman’s Narrative. ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Warner,  2002.

Gates, Henry Louis ed. Classic Slave Narratives. ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  New York: Penguin/Mentor, 1987.

Marshall, Paule.  Praisesong for the Widow. New York: Penguin/Plume, 1983.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved .  Due to lack of time, this work has, alas!, been dropped from the syllabus. 

(Feel free to buy and read it anyway!)

Shakur, Tupac.  The Rose that Grew From Concrete. New York: Simon and Schuster/Pocket, 1999. (0-671-02844-8) RECOMMENDED.  (Again, feel free to buy and read it—we’ll read some excerpts in class as well as some pieces written about it.)

X, Malcolm, and Alex Haley.  The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  New York: Random/Ballantine, 1999. (0-345-35068-5)

                                         . . . . & various e-res articles, handouts, and web-based articles

 

reading responses / quizzes / in-class work                   15 % (expect a quiz or brief writing over every reading)

essay 1                                                                           15%

midterm                                                                          15%

essay 2                                                                           15%

final project                                                                    15%  /  5%

group project / report                                                     10%

attendance/participation  / maturity                              10% *

*Absences: Any absence for ANY reason has the potential to interfere with learning, especially if you fail to Practice Maturity: see attached “Attendance, Pariticipation, Maturity” handout for more information.   I reserve the right to fail any student for too many absences—whether excused or unexcused.  More than 4 absences=“too many.”  FYI: That number—4—includes  excuses for university-related events, athletics, music, theatre, etc.  

 always read the fine print: dr. askeland’s pet peeves, rules for papers, etc.  

1)       All papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date, unless specified otherwise.  But it is better to attend class, without a paper, than to skip class to finish a paper.  Skipping class to finish a paper is a pet peeve of mine.  I may cut you a break if you come to class, on time.  I will not cut you a break if you skip class. 

2)       If you arrive late with the paper, or do not come to class at all on that date, hoping to turn it in after class, the paper is automatically considered one full day late—even if I find it in my mailbox after class.   The day ends whenever I happen to leave or cease to check my mailbox for the day.  Any excuse must be unforeseeable and fully documentable—including funerals.  Illnesses must be very serious indeed to avoid penalty.  Colds, for example, are just bad luck; plan ahead.  Quizzes and in-class activities that are worth  points cannot be made up, regardless of excuse.  

3)       Papers lose 10% the first day they are late and 5% each day  thereafter.* (So, if you show up 20  minutes late for class and turn in a paper that should have received an 88%, it will receive a 78%.  If  I find it in my mailbox the next day, it can receive no higher than 73%.). * including each weekend date, and, no, you may not hand in papers on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays.  

4)       Please do not slide papers under my door.  They may lie crumpled behind my door for weeks, and will no doubt receive a failing grade.  

5)       All papers must be written according to MLA style: typed in a normal font (10-12 pt Times New Roman or equivalent), with normal 1” margins on all sides.  Your last name and the page number should appear on the top right hand corner of each page. 

6)       To receive a passing grade, all papers MUST quote from relevant texts, analyze the quotations, and use parenthetical citations and include a complete works cited list.  Papers that do not have a works list will fail, even if the only works that are cited are texts from this class. 

7)       If I have collected and commented on drafts of the paper, keep the draft and turn it in with the final version of the paper.  

8)       FINAL ADVICE: In the long run it will be better for you to lose a few points with grace than to bother me with a continuous stream of excuses.  If given the choice between accepting the penalty for lateness or absence, even if it strikes you as unfair, or whining for a break or an exception, please choose the former tactic.   I bore of guilt trips, and remember them when I’m calculating end-of-term grades.  Practice maturity. 

“What will happen to all that beauty?” ---James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time! (1963)  

tentative* syllabus

*I believe in trying to make each course that I teach, even if I have taught it before, “new” and also responsive to the needs of the particular class of students I’m teaching that term, AND even to events and opportunities that may arise as the semester progresses.  Hence, although I have attempted to accurately gauge the time needed for each of the readings we will being doing, some of them I have not taught before, and we may need to spend more or less time on any particular one.  Often, I seek student input on how to proceed.  Other, unforeseen opportunities and events may also disrupt this schedule.  I will generally communicate any changes both in class and via email (and/or posted on the online syllabus).  Your attendance is vital to help make decisions about the directions we may choose to go as a class, and to keep track of changes in the syllabus.

week                                       tentative* assignment

1      Jan 14, 16                      Introduction: What is Slavery? (And does it exist today?)  Handout/Websites.  For Thurs: Examine "Slavery Today?" websites, read online articles as well as “Plagiarism: What It Is & How to Recognize & Avoid It” http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html and read pp. 3-38 of Equiano.

Alert: I know that the Gates, Classic Slave Narratives text is sold out at the bookstore.  We will not discuss Equiano, therefore, on Thursday.  Hopefully it will come in by Friday.  If you feel comfortable reading online materials, the entire text is available in a readable, ad-free format at: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/equiano/equiano_contents.html

Friday Jan 17:             MLK Special Event: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., will be discussing his discovery of the manuscript of The Bondwoman’s Narrative at Wright State University at 12:00 noon.  I would like to take a van and some cars (volunteers?) to see this event, which is free and open to the public.  (Optional/Extra Credit Opportunity.) 

2   Monday Jan 20:              MLK Day:  Mandatory attendance at Dr. Julian Bond’s Convocation Talk, “Civil Rights: Now and Then, Then and Now” Write a 1-page reaction to this talk and/or Gates’ lecture.

Jan 21, 23          Olaudah Equiano &  The Middle Passage. (film) 

for Thursday, IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO, read the dedication, preface, and chapters 1-3 AND 5 & 6 of Olaudah Equiano's narrative. In YOUR edition this should be pp. 15-79 and pp. 99-137 (pages 15-20 are not numbered, for some reason, in the new edition).

Then for NEXT Thursday, read chapters 7(137-151), 10 (184-204) and 12-end (227-247).

                              Useful Website: “Notes on the Life of Olaudah Equiano”; timeline:

http://www.public.asu.edu/~ehoran/teaching/ENG202/SlaveNarrative/LifeOlaudahEquiano.htm

Discussion questions (adapted from Angelo Costanzo http://college.hmco.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/vassa.html)

1. Read the dedication of the Narrative, and the preface (written by James Nichols).  To whom is Equaiano writing and for what purpose?  Other than those who are directly addressed, who do you think may have wanted to read this story?

2.  (a) Why does Equiano stress that the Africans are "a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets"?

(b) Chapter 1 contains a mix of borrowed information and personal recollections by Equiano on traditions, familial paractices, and religious observances of the Africans.  Given your answer to question 1, what effect do you think Equiano wanted to have on his audience by using this technique?  Does it “work” for you, as a reader?  (Why?/ Why not?)

3.  (a) What kind of picture does Equiano paint of his African slave experiences as opposed to his later encounters with slavery in the Western world?

(b) What signs of European influence does Equiano observe during his slave journey to the coast?

4. (a) Discuss the reversal situation of the cannibalistic theme demostrated by Equiano's initial meeting with the white slave traders on the African coast.

(b) What are some of the white world's magical arts Equiano observes with a sense of awe and wonder?

(c) Equiano's account of the talking book is a commonly described experience in early slave works. What significant traits of the young enslaved person does the story reveal?  Henry Louis Gates sees the narrative as “double-voiced”: spoken from the child’s perspective and the adult’s.  Do you find other examples of  “doubled voices”?

5.What do Equiano’s two names mean?  How do both connect to his life?  What does he seem to think of his European name?  Why do you think most scholars today refer to him as “Equiano” rather than “Vassa”? 

6. Note that this is also a story of spiritual—as well as physical—slavery and salvation.  How are those two stories similar?  How are they different?  Does the idea of “spiritual” salvation in the Western culture undermine  the idea of the West as a location of physical slavery?

7.In a chapter we are not reading, Chapter XI, after being freed, Equiano and Dr. Irving board a “Guineaman”—a slave ship—and purchase slaves for the Doctor’s plantation in Jamaica and on the Musquito shore (in Central America—coast of Nicaragua and Honduras—see p. 154-55).  What do you make of that “choice”?  How much freedom of choice does he—or any freed black man—have in his freedom, particularly in the Carribean?

8.   Summarize Equiano’s argument for abolishing slavery at the end of the work.  What’s the strongest point he makes, in your opinion?     

3    Jan 28,30           

No class Jan. 28: reading day (Retreat).  Finish reading Olaudah Equiano. For  Thursday, read chapters 7 (137-151) 10 (184-204) and 12-end (227-247).

4          Feb 4, 6       

For Tuesday: Read Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (Gates, Chapters 1-9);  

For Thurs:  Douglass, Narrative, Chapter 10-end, include Appendix) 

Essay 1 Assignment

5          Feb 10-14    

NEW!  Helpful Writing Hints               

Tues: Conclude Douglass 

 Thurs:  Class Discussion: Douglass after the Narrative (1845):   Revision and Conversion, Optional reading/ class discussion of  excerpts from My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) 

Helpful definition for Douglass: The "Chiasmus": a website that features the "x" formation that I used in class discussion to demonstrate the way that the chiasums is structured, and discusses "chiastic rhetoric" like Douglass's.

Begin reading Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X,  read pp. 1-110  BY TUESDAY, Feb 18th.            

Thursday 2/13 (note change from syllabus):  Draft DUE for Workshop.

6     Feb 17-21           

Begin discussion of Malcolm X, Autobiography (read 1-110 by Tuesday; 111-153 by Thurs)

Useful terms of the week: 

• Double Consciousness, as defined by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1903.  Strong relationship to the concept of "hegemony" developed by Antonio Gramsci and often used in cultural criticism.

• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on "Signifyin(g)": Malcolm X's lifestory has a "signfyin(g)" relationship to Douglass's and Equiano's stories.  The following is quoted from sistahspace.com: "Gates argues that African American literature is "double voiced," with texts talking to other texts, offering critique and revision.  The process of repetition and revision with a signal difference Gates terms 'signifyin(g).' Gates himself signifies on the work of other scholars, notably Roger D. Abrahams, whose attempts to define signifyin(g) preceded his own:

he name "Signifying Monkey" shows [the hero] to be a trickster, "signifying" being the language of trickery, that set of words or gestures which arrives at "direction through indirection." . . .  signal aspects of [Abrahams'] extensive definitions [include the fact that] . . . "Signifyin(g)" can mean any number of things ... [including the] ability to talk with great innuendo. (Gates 74-75)"

Work Cited

Gates, Jr., Henry Louis.  The Signifyin(g) Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism.  New York: Oxford UP, 1988.

Another definition, that spells it simply as "signfying," but also focuses on the term as descriptive of the attempt to use the "masters'" terms to subvert the power structure. 

Information please!  Who is Marcus Garvey? Does Malcolm X's autobiography as a whole have a "signifyin(g)" relationship to Garvey's life, projects?

History of Lynching in America sites:  

Malcolm's father was lynched, although his death was no doubt recorded as a "suicide" since that was the verdict of the white "authorities," who had a financial and social interest to view it in that light, and the power to enforce their views.

• "The Negro Holocaust" website, created by Robert A. Gibson, at the Yale University Teacher's Institute gives facts on both lynching and so-called "race riots" which should more accurately be called mass lynchings of black people, and the deliberate destruction of black communities, by white communities in cities across the nation, North and South.  (In other countries, such actions are called "ethnic cleansing," or "pogroms":  http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html#b

• An informative and clear site, with good statistics, exploring the role of African Americans like Ida B. Wells and others in bringing lynching to an end: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlynching.htm

• Perhaps the most startling, artistic site is the "musarium" entitled "Without Sanctuary" which discusses the specific, disturbing phenomenon of lynching postcards which demonstrate the way lynching was sanctioned even by "neutral" U.S. governmental institutions like the postal service: http://www.journale.com/withoutsanctuary/  

• Another similarly artistic site, is "American Lynching" which includes a disturbing montage of images with quotations and definitions, connected to a documentary being filmed by Gode Davis: http://www.americanlynching.com/

• An Ohio State history website includes a definition of lynching and a link to a discussion of a famous lynching that took place less than 20 miles from Wittenberg  in Urbana, Ohio, in 1897: http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/us-texts/lynching/

• Roger Perloff, a communications prof at Cleveland State University, explores the role that the press played in lynching: http://academic.csuohio.edu/perloffr/lynching/

• Billie Holiday made the song "Strange Fruit," a protest against the tradition of lynching, something of a signature song.  Malcolm met Billie Holiday during his "Harlemite" years; he mentions her most specifically in ch. 8, "Trapped."

Frriday 2/21 (note change!): Final draft due by 3 pm (please attach Draft 1 to the back of your final draft)             

7          Feb 24-28                    

TUESDAY 2/25: Malcolm X, continued  (153-293)

GROUP PRESENTATIONS BEGIN!  Link to find out what team you're on, when you're going, and what was the assignment again?

                GROUP1: Tuesday: Malcolm X  Group "D"s handout

THURSDAY 2/27: Malcolm X, concluded (294-end, include epilogue) 

                  GROUP 2: Thursday:  The Legacy of Malcolm X 

8          March 3-7                   Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement: Tupac Shakur (e-res, handouts, etc.) GROUP 3

Cornel West writes, in his book Race Matters:

Nihilism is not new in black America.  The first African encounter with the New World was an encounter with a distinctive form of the Absurd.   . . .  In fact, the major enemy of black survival in America has been and is neither oppression or exploitation but rather the nihilistic threat—that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. . . . The genius of our black foremothers and forefathers was to create powerful buffers to ward off the nihilistic threat, to equip black folk with cultural armor to beat back the demons of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lovelessness. (23)

West goes on, then to offer the startling hypothesis that “cultures are, in part, what human beings create (out of antecedent fragments of other cultures) in order to convince themselves not to commit suicide” (24). 

Work Cited

West, Cornel.  Race Matters.  New York: Vintage, 1993

Tupac readings will include: 

• Poetry/raps by 2pac Shakur: selections from The Rose that Grew from Concrete: Nikki Giovanni's "Foreward Tupak, C U in Heaven"  Plus: the poem "The Rose That Grew From Concrete" plus ALL the poems in the last two sections "Just A Breath of Freedom" and "Liberty Needs Glasses" (e-res) 

To get the ERES documents, go to http//witt-eres.wittenberg.edu/courseindex.asp. Choose "Lori Askeland" and then "English 180: Slave Narratives"; then type in the password which I gave you via email and in-class.  Email me if you forgot (laskeland@wittenberg.edu).

• and selected cuts from Tupac's CDs. "Keep Ya Head Up," "So Many Tears," "Trapped," "Dear Mama," and "To Live and Die in L.A." (handouts of lyrics)

• Michael Eric Dyson, "Dear Mama" and "Son of a Panther" (E-res)

• Nikki Giovanni's intro to The Rose . . .  and  "All Eyez on U" available at: http://sbacari.tripod.com/poetry/alleyez.htm

• Amanda Santiogo's article "To Live and Die in L.A. The Connection to Inner City Violence," which analyzes that song in relation to other visions of Los Angeles and southern California, particularly in pop music history. At http//www.streetgangs.com/newsletter/121002diela.html

See Also: 

Article on Giovanni from Horizon magazine: http://www.horizonmag.com/1/nikki-giovanni.asp