Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature straniere e Culture moderne

The primary goals of this course are as follows:

1) to become familiar with the historical, cultural, and ideological circumstances surrounding a given piece of literature, and to also explore the development and expression of some fundamental ideas, assumptions, myths, and beliefs that still influence the ways Americans think about themselvesand their society.

2) to develop our ability to read these texts both carefully and critically, and to use textual evidence to support interpretations or opinions.

1.Use critical reading methods practiced in the discipline of literature to analyze novels in their historical and cultural contexts.

2.communicate via oral and written expression scholarly information and insight about the early transatlantic world.

3. demonstrate capacity and agility in the use of primary and secondary research in print and online sources and databases.

Lecture format and seminar meetings

This course is taught IN PERSON and is not suitable for distant learning.

Recording sessions (even partially) is forbidden. Recordings of lessons will not be made available.

Written exams during the semester

Oral exam -

BLACK WOMEN WRITERS

During the course of the semester, using works by black women writers we will examine some of the ways in which American literature has dealt with racial issues and how women have described and discussed their specific condition. Among the course's concerns are: concepts of racial identity; the images and representations that blacks and whites offer of each other; overt and subtle forms of racism; the intersection of race, gender, class and sexuality, and ways in which the writers reflect and/or transcend the cultures from which they come. We will read a range of literary works - including texts by Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, Zora N. Hurston, Toni Morrison - as well as selected recent scholarship, and we will watch movies dealing with racial issues during different periods of American history.

Bibliography:

Toni Morrison, A selection of essays (provided by the instructor)

Claudia Rankine, Citizen. An American Lyric.

Phillis Wheatley, A Selection of Poems (On Being Brought from Africa to America; To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North America, &c.; To the University of Cambridge, in New England; On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, 1770; Thoughts on the Works of Providence; To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works; To His Excellency General Washington)

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Frances Harper, A Selection of Poems (Ethiopia, Eliza Harris, The Slave Mother, Vashti, A Double Standard), “The Two Offers”

Zora N. Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Nella Larsen, Passing

Alice Walker, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”

Toni Morrison, A Mercy

Students are required to own these texts, in print form (no electronic versions).

The following texts will be provided by the instructor:

Hortense Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” in Diacritics Vol. 17, No. 2, Culture and Countermemory: The “American” Connection (Summer, 1987), pp. 64-81. Available here: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Spillers_Mamas_Baby.pdf

Christina Sharpe. In the Wake. On Blackness and Being. (2016) (Selection)

Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts.” Small Axe, 26, 12:2 (2008): 1-14. Available here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/research/centres/blackstudies/venus_in_two_acts.pdf