10:20a-11:35a D (25) 3 cr.
COAS INTENSIVE WRITING SECTION.
The purpose of this course is to use fiction to interrogate black
cultural representations of identity influenced by oral traditions,
literacy, class, sexuality, and gender. It is a writing intensive
course, based on critical interrogation and discussion. Students are
responsible for coming to class, turning in writing assignments on
time, orally articulating their ideas in class, and offering
considerable response to class subject matters. Papers, quizzes,
discussions, and one oral exam are constructed from six novels, a
course pack reading, and several films. Specific requirements for this
class include a 5-minute final oral exam, four critical responses to
the novels (1-2 pages), and two analytical essays (5-6 pages). The
class is structured around four thematic ideas/questions: (1) From
Girls to Women, Do Little Black Girls Dream: Black Women and
self-worth, (2) The representation of blackness and black male culture
and self worth, (3) the power of sexuality in orality of African
American culture, and (4) Does hip-hop culture have a written text,
and how does such a text address the first three themes?
Selected Texts include:
Red Jordan Arobateau’s Bars Across Heaven
Donald Goines’s Whoreson
Gayl Jones’s Corregidora
Sapphire’s PUSH
Paul Beatty’s White Boy Shuffle
Toni Morrison’s Paradise
Films:
A Question of Color
Berry Gordy’s Mahogony
Kasi Lemmon’s Eve’s Bayou
Gina Prince-Blythewood’s Love and Basketball