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Academic Year 2005/2006

Black American Writers Telling (True) Stories
AFAM 308 FA
Crosslistings:
ENGL 350

In this course we will read projects by Black American writers, which are considered in some way autobiographical. Texts will include traditional autobiographies, memoirs, autobiographical poetry and fiction, biopics based on information given by the subject, and autobiographical moments in critical projects. We will attend to the idea of autobiographical truth as a convention that refers as much to the genre of autobiography as to the authors' lives. Of particular interest will be the way silences and fictional events function in the true story. We will consider works of authors who might be said to conform to or rebel against the charge to tell proper stories of their lives. Our focus will be the political goals of publishing stories about one's life and the ways in which speaking as a Black person within the United States might complicate that telling. We will read the withholding of information, disclosure, and the altering of life details as potentially political acts. We will also ask ourselves how the claim to truth affects the authority and aesthetics of a text.

MAJOR READINGS

Jacobs, INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL
Hurston, DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X
Lorde, ZAMI A NEW SPELLING OF MY NAME
Ra, SPACE IS THE PLACE
Others TBA

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Critical foundations may include: Black Women Writing Autobiography: A Tradition within a Tradition (Braxton), Bio/Pics (Custen), My Father's Shadow: Intergenerational Conflict in African American Men's Autobiography (Dudley); Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical (Onley); African American Autobiography (Andrews), Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture (Lionnet), and Autobiographical Occasions and Original Acts (Stone).

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA AFAM    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-30-2006

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