The African-American Intellectual Tradition

elective courses

This course examines social, theoretical and political writings of Black intellectuals in the U.S. from the time of slavery until today, i.e. from Frederick Douglass to Henry Louis Gates, Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Emphasis is placed on debates and controversies concerning the cultural identity of black Americans, strategies of resisting prejudice and discrimination, and ways of conceptualizing the role of race in American history.

This course examines selected works by key black intellectuals from the time of slavery to contemporary times: from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Henry Louis Gates, Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates. We will focus on evolving ideas and debates concerning race, (in)justice, identity and belonging. In addition to texts (essays, speeches, polemics), a few exceptional documentary films will be discussed.

The key themes of the course are:

- Conflicting strategies and ideologies concerning the “race question” in the USA: accommodation vs. confrontation; radicalism vs. reform; separatism vs. assimilation; the question of “authenticity” of black culture; the effects of racism and economic exploitation on black people; ways to redress past injustice eg. affirmative action, reparations etc.

- Black thinkers’ attitudes towards American ideology, values and mythology: American dream, American exceptionalism, patriotism, meritocracy, individualism, etc. We will look at Black intellectuals’ critiques of America and at their efforts to use this ideology in the struggle for racial equality. We will also consider the changing place of religion in African American thought.

- Black readings of white imagination. Black thinkers’s writings on the rarely acknowledged role of race and racism in the broader American intellectual tradition (whiteness as privilege and the question of white guilt).

- The intersections of race, gender and sexuality in US culture. Throughout the course we will address the question of complex links between racism, sexism and homophobia; the gender aspect of racial stereotypes; gender roles in black communities; black versions of feminism; writings on sexuality and homophobia.

Selected course bibliography (note: this list is subject to some revision):

Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July" (1852);

Frederick Douglass, Editorial from The North Star (July 28, 1848)

Sojourner Truth: "Aren't I a Woman?"; The Anti-Slavery Bugle;

Booker T. Washington: Up From Slavery (selections)

W.E.B. Du Bois: Souls of Black Folk (selections);

Ida B.Wells-Barnett, "A Red Record" (selection)

Marcus Garvey, "Africa for the Africans"; "The Future as I See it"

Alain Locke, "The New Negro"

Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"

George Samuel Schuyler, "The Negro-Art Hokum"

Zora Neale Hurston, "The Characteristics of Negro Expression";

Richard Wright, "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow"

Ralph Ellison: "What America would be like without Blacks"

James Baldwin: "Notes of a Native Son"; "The American Dream and the American Negro"

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "A Letter from the Birmingham Jail,"

Malcolm X: "The Ballot or the Bullet"

Eldridge Cleaver, excerpts from: Soul on Ice

Angela Davis, "Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist";

Alice Walker, "Looking for Zora"

Henry Louis Gates, "Writing 'Race' and the Difference it Makes";

Shelby Steele, The Age of White Guilt (1999)

bell hooks, "Eating the Other"

Toni Morrison, "Playing in the Dark" (selection)

TA-NEHISI COATES, "The Case for Reparations"

Michelle Alexander, "The New Jim Crow" (Introduction)

Christopher Lebron, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea" (selection)

Documentaries:

The African Americans Many Rivers to Cross (PBS)

The 13th (dir Ava DuVernay, 2016 )

I am not your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2016)

Upon completing this course a student:

KNOWLEDGE:

- knows and understands a large number of texts by US black intellectuals from slavery until today.

- knows the historical context of these texts (i.e. key historical developments pertaining to race relations in the USA;

- understands key koncepts of critical race theory: primitivism, race as cultural construct, one drop rule, passing, etc.

SKILLS

- is able to examine polemicss and other historical documents critically, taking int account the context of their writing;

- can locate key areas of disagreement between political positions (assimilationism vs separatism);

- is able to formulate and present to a group an argument in the area of US race history;

COMPETENCES:

- is able to cooperate in a group;

- is sensitized to racial prejudice and capable of cntering it with hitorically grounded arguments;

- is open to conflicting opinions pertaining to collective identity, US society, politics and culture;

- is able to formulate and defend his/her opinion coherently and with respect of other views

1. attendance, participation and preparation (3 brief tests, 3 forum posts) - 20%

2. group presentation - 20%

3. Final paper (6-8 pages) - two versions - 30%

4. final test - 30%

5! = 96

5 = 92.5

4+ = 87.5

4 = 80

3+ = 75

3 = 60