Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines how literature and language work to reflect, perform, complicate, and critique constructions of race, ethnicity, and national and diasporic identities and spaces. May draw from post-colonial approaches, critical race theory, and Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies. May be further organized by historical period, genre, or critical approach. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Telling the Tale: An Introduction to Black and Indigenous American Literature

“I think,” James Baldwin said in 1955, “that the past is all that makes the present coherent, and further, that the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.” Baldwin was only 31 when he wrote those words. Already he was interested in how art can reckon frankly with the racial atrocities of American history, and already he was calling out American writers for their reticence to do so. Baldwin died in 1987, the same year Toni Morrison published her fifth novel. It was called Beloved, and it did what Baldwin had asked. It certainly wasn’t the first time that had happened, but it’s where this class will start.

This course examines four contemporary novels by Black and Indigenous American writers, all of which tell the tale of race in America: Morrison’s Beloved, Louise Erdrich’s The Round House (2012), James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird (2014), and Tommy Orange’s There There (2018). Along the way we’ll read shorter pieces from the eras discussed in each novel, including work by William Apess, Baldwin (from whom our course subtitle comes), Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Hawk), Frances E. W. Harper, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, and Henry David Thoreau. Lectures and discussions will focus especially on the roles law, insurrection, violence, colonialism, and white supremacy play in the Black and Indigenous American experience from the early nineteenth century to the present.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

comprehend the mechanics of language and especially figurative language;
understand how that language reflects, performs, complicates, and critiques constructions of race, ethnicity, and national and diasporic identities and spaces;
recognize complex relationships between text and context;
develop skills in analyzing and interpreting language and text, broadly defined, and learn strategies for creating and communicating informed claims about both; and
learn to use language, its history, and its capacities to engage with the ideas and experiences of others.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

The novels listed below will be available at SFU Bookstore, though please feel free to order them separately, if you like. If you do, local bookstores would really appreciate the business. I recommend especially Iron Dog Books and Massy Books.

All other readings will be available via SFU Library or our Canvas shell.

REQUIRED READING: