Policies for Eng 164-01, Fictions of Race

Goals & Description:

Although this is a course with a very specific intellectual agenda -- tracing the development of the cultural concept of "race" in British and American texts from the seventeenth century to the present -- as a a first year colloquium, we will also have several additional, although complementary, goals. The first of these is to help with the transition to the college classroom. To this end, we will work to develop skills as critical thinkers and public speakers, and to build a group dynamic that brings out the best contributions from each of us. Our second goal will to refine our writing skills, and our sense of writing as a process, with particular attention to the argumentative essay, the primary form of writing in college classes.

In this class, then, we will develop self-awareness and self-confidence as both writers and critical readers. We will practice careful critical reading, both on the texts and on one another's writing, working towards the habit of applying these skills to our own writing reflexively. Throughout the semester, "rhetoric ," "culture" and "whiteness" will be key concepts for us. We will strive to understand the texts we discuss not simply as artistic achievements, but also as works embedded in a specific cultural moment, and themselves developed through a writing (or film-making) process.

The historical sweep of our texts should help students with critical thinking; recognizing the past development of cultural assumptions about race will, ideally, become a tool to distance us from, and give us perspective on, the assumptions that underlie our own thinking.

Requirements:

Regular attendance & participation are required of all students; both are crucial to the success of the class.

Three essays, each with a required revision. Grades will be assigned only to final revised papers.

Four brief response papers.

Participation in assigned revision groups outside of class; 2 1-page peer critiques for each paper. There will also be a required revision meeting with the professor during the first week of October.

Definitions & Details:

Papers:

1. Rhetorical Analysis, 3-4 pages: Using basic rhetorical concepts -- particularly authorial strategies for appealing to an audience -- students will analyze a brief passage from the first few weeks of the syllabus.
2. Voice exercise, 4 pages: Students will write a letter, from a character to the author, articulating that character's concerns about her literary embodiment, or from one author to another, offering a critique.
3. Literary Analysis. 4-5 pages. Students will develop their own topics (in consultation with the class & professor) about any of the texts from the syllabus. A particularly successful response paper would make an excellent basis for this paper. Note that this paper requires a topic proposal as well as a draft & a revision.

For these three papers, you must bring THREE (3) copies to class on the first time the papers is due, two (2) copies for your revision group and one for your professor.

Response papers will be brief, but analytical, accounts of your reactions to a text. Rather than trying to account for all the readings for a given day, or for an entire film or novel, you should focus closely on one aspect of a text. Some suggestions: show how the text relates to another text, or to a cultural/historical issue, that we have discussed; elaborate or refute a moral position set forth, or a critical interpretation offered; or develop the significance of a text to a contemporary debate or event. NB: On days that you have a response paper due, you may well be be called on to open the class discussion.

All papers, including response papers, must be typed, double-spaced, and printed legibly. Response papers will not be accepted late. Please plan ahead -- write your paper before the day it's due, so you aren't at the mercy of a printer that suddenly breaks down or some such catastrophe.

Attendance & Participation: In-class discussion and argument will fuel this course. Attendance and participation are therefore crucial. Three or more unexcused absences will adversely effect your grade; five will constitute grounds for a "No Entry." (Absences will be excused for documented sickness and family emergencies; if you are ill with the 'flu or another contagious disease, do us all a favor -- stay home and rest. But do let me know beforehand.) Participation,including your response papers, group work, and contributions to class discussion, will be a major factor in your grade. Assignments, including all readings, should be completed before the beginning of class on the day they are listed. Missing a day on which you have a response paper due will result in a zero for the assignment, unless you have a documentedly dire medical or personal emergency. And remember, lateness is disruptive and rude -- and can count as an absence.

Grading:

Paper 1: 15%

Paper 2: 20%

Paper 3: 30%

In class contributions: 15%

Response Papers: 10%

Peer Critiques: 10%

Required Texts:

Shakespeare: The Tempest (New Pelican Edition)

Conrad: Heart of Darkness (Dover edition)

Larsen: Passing & Quicksand (Rutgers UP edition)

All other readings in a course packet available in the English dept. third week of classes

 

 

I: Introduction: Privileges of Whiteness

Tu Sept 5: overview of the course

Th Sept 7: Race Traitor selections

II: Inventing Race: Historical Origins of Whiteness

Tu Sept 12: Tempest

Th Sept 14: Tempest (finish reading play)

Tu Sept 19: Tempest & The New World: Read Montaigne essay

Tu Sept 21: Tempest & The New World: Read Rowlandson .

Tu Sept 26: Maria Edgeworth: "The Grateful Negro"

Tu Sept 28: Thomas Jefferson: excerpts from Notes on the State of Virginia.

Paper 1, rhetorical analysis, due.

III: The White Man's Burden: Enforcing a Racial Order

NB: Required revision meetings this week

Tu Oct 3: Lynching: Dunbar, American Mercury stories

Th Oct 5: Mythologizing race in the US West: Wister Essay.

Tu Oct 10 Film: "The Searchers"

Paper 1 revision due

Th Oct 12 "The Searchers," discussion continues

Fall Break

Tu Oct 24: Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Th Oct 26: HoD, continued, & Achebe essay.

Tu Oct 31: Wrap up HoD/ Achebe discussion. Rush story.

Th Nov 2: Whiteness in Contemporary Africa: Rush & Head stories

Paper 2: Voice due.

Tu Nov 7: "Lone Star"

Th Nov 9: finish "Lone Star"; wrap up "enforcement" section

Paper 2 revision due.

 

 

IV The Problem of the Color Line

Tu Nov 14 Lydia Maria Child stories

Th Nov 16 Chopin, Chestnutt & Cable stories.

Paper 3 topic proposal due.

Tu Nov 21 "Imitation of Life"

Th Nov 23: No class-- Thanksgiving

Tu Nov 28 Larsen Passing

Th Nov 30 Larsen Passing

Tu Dec 5: "Secrets & Lies"/ "Brown Babies"

Paper 3 due.

Th Dec 7: "Secrets & Lies"/ "Brown Babies"

V: Conclusions

Tu Dec 12: overview/ paper reports

Th Dec 14: final meeting-- final paper reports

Sun, Dec 17th: Final revisions of paper 3 due at my office, 5 pm.