123041 PS Proseminar Literature / Literary Studies (2017S)

Course Description:
From slavery to the present, African American women authors have surmounted considerable odds to present their stories and their histories (both orally and written) to interested audiences. In the 20th and early 21st century, these women have brought attention to the inequalities facing black women and men, historically and in the present, in rural areas and within urban settings, and within the different classes. Using black feminist approaches, they continue to contest ageism, classism, racism, and sexism while also exploring the particular disadvantages, hurdles, and progress African Americans have made and continue to achieve in the hostile environments they face in the US. The authors in this course re-visit the past, narrate the present or create alternate futures to provide additional voices and perspectives of Black experiences in the US, contesting rigid binaries and contextualizing hegemonic power structures.
Learning Outcomes:
* Identify contemporary African American women writers, their particular narrative approaches for re-writing or integrating the past into present/futuristic settings, and nuanced language use in speech patterns in the texts.
* Apply black feminist and gender studies theoretical approaches to the texts through class discussions and in written essays, as well as link the texts to each other.
* Defend critical interpretations of the novel through class discussions.
* In-depth analysis of the novels and the creation of a structured, logical argumentation of a concise thesis through writing research essays, including primary and secondary sources.

Interactive class discussions, in small groups as well as in the whole group; exploration of primary sources through guided questions in-class; integration of articles (secondary sources) into class discussions through assigned pre-readings; and written essays to apply the logical argumentation of a central thesis to the primary sources.