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 28 – Midterm 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*