ENGL20312 Ethnicity in American Writing: Place, Identity, and Form

ENGL20312 Ethnicity in American Writing from LTSU on Vimeo.

Year: Second

Part of the year: Half Year 2

Module Leader: Stephanie Palmer

Assessments:

70% summative essay: students will choose from a range of titles, which will vary from year to year
30% summative project: students will choose from a range of short projects
Formative outline for essay
Formative project proposal for project

Keywords:

American literature, contemporary literature, ethnicity, race, diaspora, hybridity, globalisation, immigrant writing, women's writing, gender and sexuality, African American, Asian American, Native American, Latino/a American

Description:

Both racial oppression and ethnic diversity have been central to the US experience since the nation's founding. We will discuss the history of the terms 'race' and 'ethnicity' and how they impact literature. We will discuss how US literature stages interactions between people of different ethnic backgrounds, how writers write ethnicity into their work, how writers use literature as a tool of resistance against oppression, and how the experience of ethnicity creates new forms of literature. Male and female writers have engaged ethnicity differently, and the gendering of the tradition will be a topic for conversation. We will discuss how identity, and particularly ethnic identity, is shaped differently in different literary forms such as the Bildungsroman, the lyric, the short story cycle, essays, speeches, or plays. We make an effort in this module to consider what different ethnicities like African American, Asian American Latino/a American, and Native American have in common as well as recognising their differences.

Prerequisites:ENGL114 Foundations of Literary Study

Useful Information:

This module is part of the American literature pathway. Most students will be familiar with ENGL 117 American Literature: Writing Self and Nation, and we will continue the conversations about race, ethnicity, and US identity begun in that module. However exchange students or others who have not taken ENGL 117 need not worry, because ENGL 117 is not a prerequisite.

Set Texts:

This is a list of set texts. You will not necessarily need to buy all of these texts, because many of the essays, poems, and short plays will be provided as photocopies or on NOW. These are the texts you may read over the summer.

Malcolm X, 'The Ballot or the Bullet' (1964)
Martin Luther King, 'I Have a Dream' (1963)
Barack Obama, 'Knox College Commencement Address' (2005)
Amiri Baraka, Dutchman (1964)
Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)
Toni Morrison, 'Recitatif' (1983)
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (1976)
Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988)
David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (1988)
Cherríe Moraga, 'From a Long Line of Vendidas: Chicanas and Feminism' (1986)
Charles R. Johnson, 'The End of the Black American Narrative' (2008)
N. Scott Momaday, 'The Man Made of Words'
Lorna Dee Cervantes, poems
Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (2013)
Native American Songs and Poems: An Anthology (1996) and further poems by Sherman Alexie, Jo Harjo, and Leanne Howe

Teaching methods/structure:

Lecture/workshops and seminars

Should you require to look at the full module specification please contact the School Admin Team at AAHSchool.admin@ntu.ac.uk

Contact details for further queries (module leader):

Stephanie Palmer

Email: stephanie.palmer@ntu.ac.uk