AJ15068 African American Short Story

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2010
Extent and Intensity
0/20/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 2 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Nina Bosničová, Ph.D. (lecturer), Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Prerequisites (in Czech)
SOUHLAS
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 10 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/10, only registered: 0/10, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/10
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 10 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
The aim of this course is to offer the students an introduction into African American literature via the genre of the short story. We will be reading short stories by some of the best-known African American male and female authors of the nineteenth and the twentieth century. The chronological approach will help the students get an idea of some of the most important aspects of black American history as well as some of the most pressing issues of this minority group’s literary and cultural production. The primary texts will be supplemented by secondary, critical readings.
Syllabus
  • Syllabus:
  • Monday, Feb 15: Introduction, Frederick Douglass’s “The Heroic Slave;” Francis Harper’s “The Two Offers;” Pauline Hopkins’s “The Mystery Within Us”
  • Krista Walter’s “Trappings of Nationalism in Frederick Douglass’s ‘The Heroic Slave’” Francis Harper’s “Fancy Etchings”
  • Tuesday, Feb 16: Charles Chesnutt’s “The Sheriff’s Children;” Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “The Scapegoat;” W.E.B. Du Bois’s “On Being Crazy;” Jean Toomer’s “Fern”
  • A selection of Charles Chesnutt’s letters and journals W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Criteria of Negro Art” Alain Locke’s “Art or Propaganda?”
  • Wednesday, Feb 17: Langston Hughes’s “The Blues I’m Playing;” Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat;” Nella Larsen’s “Sanctuary;” Ann Petry’s “Mother Africa”
  • Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” Zora Neale Hurston’s “How it Feels to be Colored Me,” “What White Publishers Won’t Print”
  • Thursday, Feb 18: Richard Wright’s “Big Boy Leaves Home;” James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”; Ralph Ellison’s “King of the Bingo Game;” Amiri Baraka’s “The Alternative;”
  • Richard Wright’s “Blueprint for Negro Writing” James Baldwin’s (from) “Everybody’s Protest Novel” Amiri Baraka: “Cultural Revolution and the Literary Canon”
  • Friday, Feb 19: John Edgar Wideman’s “Fever;” Charles Johnson’s “The Education of Mingo;” Alice Walker’s “Nineteen fifty-five;” Toni Cade Bambara’s “Gorilla, My Love”
  • John Edgar Wideman’s “Preface” (From Breaking Ice: An Anthology of African American Fiction) Charles Johnson: “From Narrow Complaint to Broad Celebration: A Conversation with Charles Johnson” Alice Walker’s “Definition of Womanist”
Teaching methods
textual analysis; group and class discussion; student presentation; lectures;
Assessment methods
Assessment:
full attendance, active participation in discussions, in-class presentation (20 minutes), final essay (1st cycle students: 1500 words, 2nd cycle students: 3000 words)
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
Information on the per-term frequency of the course: Výuka proběhne v týdnu od 15. 2. 2010.
The course is taught in blocks.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2012.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2010, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2010/AJ15068