ENGL 470: Syllabus

Note: Each class period your focus questions are due on the readings assigned for that day

1/11 Course Objectives and Expectations

"Word work is sublime"

Audio Clip: Morrison's Nobel Lecture Nobel Web Site Version ; Course Web Site Version (Download, print, and read for next class)

1/13 Morrison's Nobel Lecture (available online at above web sites)

Focus Questions #1 Due

Audio: "Been in the Storm So Long" (Spiritual); "Rosie" (Work Song); "I Have a Dream"

1/18 Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 1-58 (through "Autumn" section and Afterword)

Taylor-Guthrie "Conversation with Alice Childress and Toni Morrison" (Taylor-Guthrie 3-9)

Christina Davis, "An Interview with Toni Morrison" (Taylor-Guthrie 223-233)

Focus Question #2 Due

Viewing: Eyes on the Prize, Awakenings

1/20 The Bluest Eye, 60-93 ("Winter" section)

Jill Matus, "Shame and Anger in The Bluest Eye" (in Readings) OR J. Brooks Bouson, "'The Devastation that Even Casual Racial Contempt Can Cause: Chronic Shame, Traumatic Abuse, and Racial Self-Loathing in The Bluest Eye" (in Readings). Choose one to read; we'll discuss both in class (with a little help from our friends).

Focus Question #3 Due

Presentation: the blues--just what is it and what experience does it articulate (use some examples of the blues prior to and up through the 1960s). Ralph Ellison’s essays on music are a great source for this.

1/25 The Bluest Eye, 97-214 (Spring and Summer sections)

Michael Awkward, "'The Evil of Fulfillment': Scapegoating and Narration in The Bluest Eye" (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #4 Due

1/27 Morrison, Sula, 1-48 (Introduction, 1919, 1920, 1921)

Yvonne Atkinson, "Language that Bears Witness: The Black English Oral Tradition in the Works of Toni Morrison" (in Readings)

Focus Question #5 Due

Presentations: 1)Lynchings of Black Men in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Ida B. Wells-Barnett's Campaign Against Lynching, Protests of Black Community against Lynchings, etc.; 2) The Scottsboro Boys Case (racial profiling and false prosecutions for rape)

2/1 Sula, 49-85 (1922, 1923, 1927)

Robert Stepto, "Intimate Things in Place" (Taylor-Gutherie, 10-29)

FOCUS QUESTION #6 Due

Presentation(s): 1) the role of Black soliders in World War I (the 369th, 370th, and 371st regiments); 2) Violence against Black solidiers in Houston; 3) violence against returning Black soliders after the war, etc.;

2/3 Sula, 89-111 (Part II: 1937)

Jill Matus, "Sula: War and Peace Traumas" (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #7 Due

Presentation: 5) non-western, non-dualistic spirituality of west African religions (Flashes of the Spirit is a good source on this), animism, etc.

2/8 Sula, 112-174 (Part II: 1939, 1940, 1941, 1965)

Gay Wilentz, "An African-Based Reading of Sula" (in Readings)

Thomas LeClair, "The Language Must Not Sweat" (Taylor-Gutherie 119-128)

FOCUS QUESTION #8 Due

2/10 Morrison, Song of Solomon, 1-89 (Chapters 1 through 3)

Morrison, "Rootedness, The Ancestor as Foundation" (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #9 Due

Presentation: 1) the African "Flying Men" Stories; 2) the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the struggle of Blacks for labor rights

2/15 Song of Solomon, 90-216 (Chapters 4 through 9)

Nellie McKay, "An Interview with Toni Morrison" (Taylor-Gutherie 138-155)

FOCUS QUESTION #10 Due

Presentation: The Civil Rights Movement and the question of non-violence and violence in the struggle. This could include three "mini-Presentation" such as: 3) the philosophy and social action of the Black Panthers; 4) the teachings and activism of Martin Luther King, Jr's, based on a Ghandian philosophy of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience; 5) the spiritual journey of Malcolm X, his activism, and his evolving philosophy.

2/17 Song of Solomon, 219-337 (Chapters 10 through 15)

Claudia Tate, "Toni Morrison" (Taylor-Guthrie 156-170)

FOCUS QUESTION #11 Due

Presentation: 6) Elements of African culture in Song of Solomon (see Gay Wilentz's articles in African American Review and MELUS)

2/22 Song of Solomon, same pages as above

Keith E. Byerman, "Songs of the Ancestors: Family in Song of Solomon (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #12 Due

2/24 Morrison, Tar Baby, 1-127 (chapters 1 through 4)

FOCUS QUESTION #13 Due

Presentation: 1) The Tar Baby story and its variations

3/1 Tar Baby, 128-214 (chapters 5 through 6)

Charles Ruas, "Toni Morrison" (Taylor-Guthrie 93-118)

FOCUS QUESTION #14 Due

3/3 Tar Baby, 215-306 (Chapters 7 through 10 and final section)

Marilyn Sanders Mobley, "Narrative Dilemma: Jadine as Cultural Orphan in Tar Baby" (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #15 Due

3/8 Midterm Essay Due

Viewing: Toni Morrison Uncensored

3/10 Morrison, Beloved, 1-73

Morrison, "The Site of Memory" (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #16 Due

Presentation: 1) The Margaret Garner story; 2) the Fugitive Slave Law; 3) the Underground Railroad; 4) slave rebellions in the U.S.

Spring Break

3/22 Beloved, 74-235

Marilyn Sanders Mobley, "A Different Remembering: Memory, History, and Meaning in Beloved" (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #17 Due

3/24 Beloved, same pages as above

Marsha Darling, "In the Realm of Responsibility: A Conversation with Toni Morrison" (Taylor-Guthrie 246-254)

FOCUS QUESTION #18 Due

Presentation: post-emancipation violence and economic discrimination against Blacks

3/29 Revision of Midterm Essay Due. Workshop on how to revise this essay by incorporating scholarly sources. Attendance is required. No extensions on this deadline can be granted. Class will meet in Walker Hall, Room 221.

3/31 Beloved, all of Part Three (239-275)

Bill Moyers, "A Conversation with Toni Morrison," (Taylor-Guthrie 262-274)

FOCUS QUESTION #19 Due

Presentation: 5) Presentation on The Black Book compiled by Middleton Harris, et al. (edited by Toni Morrison)--particularly on the history of slavery and emancipation.

4/5 Morrison, Jazz, 1-51

FOCUS QUESTION #20 Due

Presentation: 1) The "Great Migration" from the South to Northern Cities, particularly Harlem; 2) Harlem in the 20s—the Harlem Renaissance

4/7 Jazz, 53-114

Werner, Craig, ”Jazz : Morrison and the Music of Tradition” (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #21 Due

Viewing of “I’ll Build Me a World: Without Fear or Shame” or “From these Roots”

4/12 Jazz, 117-184

FOCUS QUESTION #22 Due

Presentation: 3) the East St. Louis attacks by whites upon the Black community and protests against this violence in Harlem and D.C.; the “silent parade” protesting violence against Blacks; 4) Madame C.J. Walker and her creation of an African-American women's controlled beauty industry; 5) jazz, the stylistic and formal qualities of jazz music, Duke Ellington's development of the genre

4/14 Draft of Final Essay Due. Writing Workshop: Peer review of drafts. Bring two complete drafts of your paper, including the works cited page. One copy is for your use in writing groups; one copy will be turned in for my feedback.

4/19 Jazz, 187-229.

Matus, Jill, ”‘A sweettooth for pain’ : History, Trauma and Replay in Jazz ” (in Readings)

FOCUS QUESTION #23 Due

4/21 Morrison, Paradise, 1-77 (Ruby – Grace)

FOCUS QUESTION #24 Due

Presentation: 1) the gnostic gospels especially their stories of female Christian gods (use Elaine Pagel's book by that name. You can get it from interlibrary loan)

4/26 Paradise, 81-217 (Seneca – Patricia)

Presentation: 2) the migration of Blacks westward into Kansas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere after emancipation; homesteading of Blacks; Black towns and communities in the West

FOCUS QUESTION #25 Due

4/28 Paradise, 221-318 (Consolata – Save-Marie)

Jill Matus, “Postscript on Paradise”

FOCUS QUESTION #26 Due

Presentation: 3) Candomble (an Afro-Brazilian non-western, femino-centric religion and spiritual cosmology)

Final Revision of Essay Due