Module Identifier | EN33220 | ||
Module Title | AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE | ||
Academic Year | 2001/2002 | ||
Co-ordinator | Dr Helena Grice | ||
Semester | Semester 2 | ||
Other staff | Mrs Carol Marshall | ||
Course delivery | Lecture | 10 Hours | |
Seminar | 10 Hours | ||
Assessment | Essay | 2 essays (2,500 words each) | 100% |
Resit assessment | Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. |
1. Introduction: Slave narratives; lyrics of early blues and spirituals.
Required reading: Helena Grice et al, Beginning Ethnic American Literatures (Manchester UP, 2001), chapters 1+2; Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of An American Slave, 1845 (Penguin)
Optional further reading: Paul Oliver, The Story of the Blues; Screening the Blues; James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, 1912. Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, in Heath Anthology of American Literature Vol. 1
2. Black Women's Fiction I:
Required reading: Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1939 (Virago)
Optional further reading: Hurston, Jonah's Gourd Vine, 1934, Dust Tracks on A Road, 1942, Mules and Men, 1935;
Video: African America in The Great Depression
3. From Autobiography to Allegory and Satire I:
Required reading: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, 1952 (Penguin)
Optional further reading: Going to the Territory, 1984
4. From Autobiography to Allegory and Satire II:
Required reading: Invisible Man contd.;
Optional further reading: Ellison, Shadow and Act (essays), 1967; Richard Wright, Native Son, 1940; Black Boy and American Hunger 1944
5. Black Drama I:
Required reading: James Baldwin, The Amen Corner 1955, 1965 (Penguin)
Optional further reading: Baldwin, Go Tell It On The Mountain, 1954; Blues for Mister Charlie, 1964; The Fire Next Time, 1963
6. Black Drama II:
Required reading: Leroi Jones, Dutchman, 1964 (Morrow Quill); August Wilson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, 1984 (Penguin)
Optional further reading: Alice Childress, Wine in the Wilderness, 1968; Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, 1959; Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 1969; August Wilson, Fences, 1985; Joe Turner's Come and Gone, 1987; The Piano Lesson, 1990; Two Trains Running, 1992
Suggested Viewing: Spike Lee (Dir.) Do The Right Thing; Malcolm X
7. Black Women's Fiction II:
Required reading: Alice Walker, Meridian, 1976 (Women's Press)
Optional further reading and viewing: Walker, Living by the Word, 1988; Paule Marshall, Praise-Song for the Widow, 1983; Anniversary broadcasts for Martin Luther King; The Words of Martin Luther King, 1983; selected chapters from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965
8. Black Women's Fiction III:
Required reading: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, 1977 (Picador)
Optional further reading: Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987; Jazz, 1992 (there are also video and audio resources available)
9. Black Women's Fiction IV:
Required reading: Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place, 1982 (Minerva)
Optional further reading: Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills 1985 (Minerva); Thulani Davies, 1959: A Novel, 1992
10. Black Women's Fiction V:
Required Reading: Terry McMillan, Waiting to Exhale, 1995 (Black Swan) [+ film showing]
- Demonstrate knowledge of a range of African American Literature
- Identify genres within the scope of African American Literature with a particular emphasis on women?s fiction and black drama
- Describe the development of the novel from 19th century slave-narratives
- Articulate the impact on African American Fiction and drama of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950?s and 1960?s
- Read literary texts in an informed and critical manner
- Engage in coherent oral discussion of the texts and their contexts
- Write about the subject in a well-structured and argued manner with reference to cultural and historical context