ENGL 2112H/ENGL 5545: City as Text

Dr. J. Aaron Sanders, Summer 2016

M, W: 9-10:30

Location TBA

Course Description:

“Few cities," writes Phillip Lopate, "have inspired as much great writing as New York.” And writers from all over the world flock to NYC to write. This includes many minority and writers from underrepresented groups. In this course, students will design their own reading list around a subset of New York writers they discover on their own. 

Course Requirements:

Please note: all assignments will be published on individual student blogs.

Reading list (approved by Dr. Sanders) and rationale (why these books?). Examples might be: Women of the Harlem Renaissance, Queer Writers, Immigrant Literature, and so on. Students are encouraged to be as creative as they want with their “literature.” (10%) Due June 6

Four blog entries/week (12 total=60%). These blog entries should contain a mix of text and images that correspond in some way to the daily activity. Students can be as creative as they want here. Blog entries are due by noon the following day (so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday).

Weekly reports (3 total=15%). These reports are to be shared in our class meetings. They should introduce the reading list and document progress.

Final essay (10%). Write an essay in which you document how your time in New York helps you understand how New York influenced your group of writers. Due July 8

Students are required to attend all weekly activities (Monday-Thursday). (5%)

Leaving the program early will result in a grade deduction.

Sample list and rationale for Ethnic American Writers (this is too broad for your lists but this gives you a place to start; also note this is a partial list for a PhD comp exam):

The trouble with ethnic literature is that, in many ways, it doesn’t exist at all.  Put another way, all authors have ethnic origins.  By definition then, all authors write ethnic literature.  Why then an ethnic literature exam list? 

The marginalized voice is crucial to the study of ethnic literature, even if the term “ethnic” is a troubled one.  The color of a person’s skin, for instance, is a physical marker of ethnicity and therefore a means by which to marginalize people or ideas; as are religious distinctions, cultural distinctions, and so forth.  There are at least two major problems for any writers or poets who feels that they live outside the majority culture:

1)How do they survive in the majority culture that is not their own?

2)Once they devises a strategy for living in the majority culture, how does they negotiate their own culture with that of the majority?

The majority culture co-ops individuals until they feel as if they are acting “white”.   These individuals often feel lost in between the majority culture and their own.  This space is what Gloria Anzaldua calls the “borderlands” beyond ethnicity.  It exists wherever there is difference.

Whether the sense of inbetween-ness arises from conflicts of religion, sexuality, class, or race, artists must forge their identities in relation to a majority culture that precedes them.

1.Douglas, Frederick (1818-1895): (1845)

2.Brown, William Wells (1815-1884): Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself (1847), Clotel (1853)

3.Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896): (1852)

4.Jacobs, Harriet (1808-1861): (1861) From , Edited by Henry Louis Gates

5.Twain, Mark (1835-1910): (1885), (1894)

6.Cahan, Abraham (1860-1951): Yekyl (1891)

7.Wilson, Harriet (1828?-1863?): Our Nig (1859)

8.Chesnutt, Charles (1858-1932): (1899)

9.Bonnin, Gertrude Simmons (Zitkala-Sa) (1876-1938): Old Indian Legends (1901)

10.Washington, Booker T. (1856-1915): Norton

11.DuBois, W.E.B. (1868-1963): The Souls of Black Folk (1903)