Literature 2372 - Race and the American Novel

Institution:

Bard College

Subject:

Description:

Africana Studies, American Studies In her influential collection of critical lectures, Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison asks, "How is 'literary whiteness' and 'literary blackness' madand what is the consequence of that construction? How do embedded assumptions of racial (not racist) language work in the literary enterprise that hopes and sometimes claims to be 'humanistic'?" In a country where authors oEuropean descent are considered universal writers, while writers of African and other ancestries are marginalized into ethnic ghettos, what has been the effect on American literature? Using Morrison and other critics as guides, the course begins its investigation with Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno," HarrieBeecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin , and MarkTwain's Puddn'head Wilson . On the other end ofthe ethnic divide, students examine slave narratives (including Frederick Douglass's Narrative), Africanist fiction (such as Frank Webb's The Garies and Their Friends), and the stories of Charles W. Chesnutt. Works by Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Nella Larsen, and Ralph Ellison are also studied.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.bard.edu

Phone Number:

(845) 758-6822

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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