Schedule

Week 1

Wednesday January 10 – FIRST DAY – Introductions
Homework: Read Running a Thousand Miles For Freedom; Or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery (1860)

Week 2

Monday January 15 – MLK HOLIDAY NO CLASS

Wednesday January 17 -Slave Narratives + William & Ellen Craft’s Escape
Homework: SNOW DAY (just read review JP Ball’s Panorama of Slavery-Table of Contents (1855) for Monday)

Week 3

January 22 – African American Culture and the Visual Arts
Homework – Read Ethiop, “Afric-American Picture Gallery,” Anglo-African Magazine (February-August 1859) (afro-american-picture-gallery-1859-Anglo-African-Magazine)

January 24 – African/American Poetry Colonial to Antebellum
Homework – Read Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Masks” and “Sympathy” (1913); Francis Ellen Watkins Harper – “Eliza Harris” ; George Moses Horton – “On Liberty and Slavery”;  Phillis Wheatley – “On Being Brought from Africa” (1773) and “To S.M. a Young African Painter, On Seeing his Works” (1773)

First Short Reflection Due Before Week 4 (BY MIDNIGHT SUNDAY)

Week 4

January 29 – Postbellum African American Poetry
Homework – Read Charles Chesnutt’s “Po’ Sandy” (1888)

January 31 – Charles Chesnutt’s Conjure Woman Stories
Homework – Watch Dave Chapelle’s Equanimity & The Bird Revelation (on NETFLIX – sign up to host (or attend a viewing)

Week 5

February 5 – Dave Chappelle – Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality + Politics
Homework – 2Dope Queens – Episode 1 (on HBO)

February 7 – 2Dope Queens -Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality + Politics
Homework – Read Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood (1936) – Read Intro by T.S. Eliot + first 5 chapters (Bow Down + La Sumnabule + Nightwatch + “The Squatter” + Watchman, What of the Night?)

First Podcast Due Before Week 6

Week 6

February 12 – Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood (1936)
Homework – Read (reread) “The Squatter” and “Watchman, What of the Night?”

February 14 – Djuna Barnes
Homework –  Finish Djuna Barnes – last 3 chapters (Where The Tree Falls + Go Down, Matthew + The Possessed)

Week 7

February 19 – Djuna Barnes + “The Night” – metaphors of the perverse
Homework – Watch Film Short: “Shift” by Jonathan Yi

February 21 – Shift – Jonathan Yi
Homework – Review Notes for Midterm Review – What do you WANT to write about

Second Short Reflection Due Before Week 8  (BY MIDNIGHT SUNDAY)

Week 8

February 26 – Exam Review
Homework – Study for Midterm

February 28Midterm Exam 
Homework – NO HOMEWORK! LET’S TAKE A BREAK!

Week 9

March 5 – Taking Stock Day – What IS Literature and Cultural Diversity Supposed to Be About?
Homework -Amy Lowell – “A Decade” (1919), The Weather-Cock Points South” (1919), “Opal” (1919), “Venus Transiens” (1919)

March 7 – Amy Lowell’s Poetics
Homework –  Read Jean Rhys “Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966)

Week 10

March 12 – SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS

March 14 – SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS

Week 11

March 19 – Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre – Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso!
Homework -Read Louise Erdrich’s “Indian Boarding School Runaways” and “I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move”

March 21 – Louise Erdrich’s poetry
Homework –  Sherman Alexi’s Lone Ranger and Tanto Fist-Fight in Heaven – read through chapter  (roughly 1/3 of the book – page 82 in my copy).

Second Podcast Due Before Week 12

Week 12

March 26 – Sherman Alexi – Twentieth Century Native American Fiction
Homework – Sherman Alexi’s Lone Ranger chapters “All I want to do is Dance” – “Jesus Christ’s Half-Brother…” (pp 83-129)

March 28 – Alexi
Homework -Finish Sherman Alexi’s Lone Ranger from chapters “A Train is an Order” to the end

Third Short Reflection Due Before Week 13  (BY MIDNIGHT SUNDAY)

Week 13

April 2 – Sherman Alexi
Homework – Enjoy Your Life

April 4
Homework – Read Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis (the whole thing!)

Third Podcast Due Before Week 14

Week 14

April 9 – Read Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis (the whole thing!)
Homework – Read Khalid Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns: Part 1 (Chapters 1-15)

April 11 – Hosseini
Homework – Read Khalid Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns – Part 2 (Chapters 16-26)

OPTIONAL – Fourth Short Reflection Due Before Week 15  (BY MIDNIGHT SUNDAY) – A Day of Disability

Week 15

April 16 –
Homework – Khalid Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns – Part 3 (Chapters 27-47)

April 18 – 
Homework – Finish  Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns – Part 4 (Chapters 48- end + Afterward)

Read Jumpa Lahiri – “Year’s End”  The New Yorker. December 24, 2007

Week 16

April 23 – Hosseini
Homework – Review for Exams

April 25 – Last Day of Class – Exam Review and Final Papers

Longform Essay Due Before the Last Day of Classes, Friday April 27

*Final Exam Tuesday – May 8 at 4PM*