Graduate Office - Literature and Criticism Course Offerings By Semester

Course schedules are subject to change.  Please see Cathy Renwick for more information.

SUMMER 2008 SESSION II

   This course is designed to offer us opportunities to stretch and challenge standard theories and conceptualizations of the classic slave narrative.  We will read canonical slave narratives and neo-slave narratives as well as those that are not frequently studied or theorized.  I have also chosen texts that span much of the literary timeline for African American literature, a breadth that is intended to encourage historical comparisons and to challenge students to theorize why African American writers continue to revisit the themes of slavery and freedom in their work.

    We will also study criticism about classic and neo-slave narratives in order to develop a conceptual framework of this genre.  Among many questions, we will consider: What was the significance of writing for an enslaved author?  How did slave narratives impact political debates of the time about the role of slavery in a free society?  How were slave narratives inflected by gendered sensibilities and experiences?  What techniques do authors writing about slavery use to authorize and create themselves or their characters in their texts?  What themes and issues do contemporary authors present in their fictional narratives of slavery?  The criticism will provide a backdrop against which we will formulate new approaches and textual considerations of this body of literature.

     Ultimately, though, my hope is that the selection of literature and secondary works will encourage students to think “outside the box,” to find new, innovative ways of approaching and interrogating this genre of African American literature.  Toward that end, I will strongly encourage consideration of slave narrative(s) not covered in class for the critical paper.  Additional texts are on reserve in the library.

• Henry Bibb, The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave (U of Wisconsin, 2000)

• William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom (Copley, 2000)

• Harriett Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Norton, 2000)

• William Wells Brown, Clotel, Or the President's Daughter (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000)

• Gayl Jones, Corregidora (Beacon, 1975)

• Toni Morrison, Beloved (Plume, 1987)

• Phyllis Perry, Stigmata (Hyperion, 1999)

• Packet, Copies Plus

 Suggested Texts:

• Charles Johnson, Middle Passage

• David Bradley, The Channeysville Incident

• Octavia Butler, Kindred

• Ishmael Reed, Flight to Canada

• Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose