| English 597-01 |
The Rhetoric of Race
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| Syllabus
Pages
Message Board
Class
Projects Pages
Class Policies
Grading Policies Class
Covenant Links
and Resources |
"Race' is a presumed category of human difference that has had multiple, shifting and
contradictory meanings over time. It has been asserted as evidence of a divine mandate
for white supremacy, as an empirically-validated biological reality, as a synonym for
ethnicity, culture and national identity, and as a social, cultural or political fiction. This course
will explore the concept of race as an argument for or against various ways of constituting
human communities. In particular, we will delve in the role that concepts of "blackness" and
"whiteness" have played in the formation of American national identity. |
| Assumptions |
This course :
 | Assumes that students are primarily educators or future educators with an interest in multicultural literature
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| Focuses primarily on race rhetoric in American literature.
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| Sees arguments about race primarily as arguments about who has the power to define, how the power to created definitions is employed, and how that power is subverted or
contested.
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| Employs New
Historicism as a tool of critical analysis. Among other theoretical constucts that will be considered include ideas from African American tradition of literary criticism, liberation theology and critical legal theory.
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| In this course, we begin with definitions of race, racism and anti-racism presented
here.
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| Learning Goals |
As a result of this course, student should be able to:
| recognize and historicize arguments about race that are embedded in American literary texts
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| develop contextualizing tools that clarify contemporary debates about race
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| connect arguments about race and ethnicity to arguments about class, gender and sexuality
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| Texts |
Bell, Derrick, The
Power of Narrative Legal Studies Forum
Volume 23, Number 3 (1999)
Columbus, Christopher. Extracts
from Journal
The Crossroads Project. The
Columbus Doors
de Tocqueville, Alexis. Excerpts from Democracy in America
Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark : Whiteness and the
Literary Imagination Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679745424
Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of
Multicultural America Little Brown & Co (Pap); ISBN: 0316831115
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| Major Assignments |
- Bibliographic essay for Interactive Dictionary of the Rhetoric
of Race website which we will create. This dictionary will be a
kind of "reception history" of racial language.
- Regular, sustained participation in class message board discussion
- Analytical essay on the treatment of race in a particular work, by
a particular author, or in a particular critical tradition
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| Disclaimer |
In his article, "17 Tips: What a Peace Journalist Would Try to
Do," Jake Lynch urges writers to "AVOID portraying a conflict as consisting of only two parties contesting one goal."
However, the nature of this course requires the categorization of the
texts as arguments for either "dominance" or
"resistance" on one axis, and between "essentialism"
and "social construction on the other.
This oversimplification is regrettable,
particularly since, in American history, the framers of
"dominance" arguments often have a "resistance"
argument as well.
It is also regrettable because this framing omits a considerable
amount of literature. As Paula Gunn Allen notes, it also introduces
concerns that may peripheral to the cultural or literary traditions
under study. Read this interview
to find out why she feels this is a particularly problematic way to
approach Native American literature.
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| Schedule |
| Theme |
Dates and in-class activities |
Assignments |
| Historical foundations and literary constructions:
Creation myths and counter-myths |
July 2: Overview: The Construct We Call Race
July 3: In class viewing of The
Tempest
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| "Theological" constructions |
July 9: Slavemaster Theology
July 10: Slave Theologies
July 11: Sentimental anti-racism
July 12: Feminist analyses
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Takaki, "Borders"
1878 Introduction
to Uncle Tom's Cabin; Read a children's book version of UTC
- Delany-Douglass first
exchange
- Delany
to Douglass
- Delaney-Douglass second
exchange
De Toccqueville excerpts:
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| "Scientific" constructions |
Week of July 16:
"The identity of a Filipino today is of a person asking what is his identity."
-Nick Joaquin-
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Takaki, Distances
W.E.B. DuBois:
Of the Meaning of Progress From The Souls of Black Folk
Kipling, Rudyard. The
White Man's Burden
Twain, Mark. "To
The Person Sitting in Darkness"
Lopes, Sixto. The
Philippine Problem
Dictionary entry due
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| "Cultural" constructions |
Week of July 23: |
Playing in the Dark
Willa Cather, One of
Ours
Hill Collins, Patricia, "The
Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood," From Black
Feminist Thought
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| The future of race |
Week of July 30: |
Bell, Derrick, The
Power of Narrative Legal Studies Forum
Volume 23, Number 3 (1999)
Alcalay, Ron. "Morphing
Out of Identity Politics," Bad Subects, Issue# 19
March, (1995)
Wise, Tim. "Racism,
White Liberals and the Limits of Tolerance" LiP
Magazine (2000)
Final essay and presentations
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