Assignments

Instructor: Florence Boos, 319 English Philosophy Building
Office hour: Tuesday 4-5 and by appointment
Phone, e: 335-0434, 338-4383 (answering machine), florence-boos@uiowa.edu

Texts: (in IMU Bookstore)
Jacobs, Harriet, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Crofts, Hannah, The Bondwoman’s Narrative
Wilson, Harriet, Our Nig
Hurston, Zora, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ann Petry, The Street
Angelou, Maya, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Alice Walker, Meridian
Morrison, Toni, Beloved
Hansberry, Lorraine, A Raisin in the Sun
Stetson, Erlene, ed., Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980 (poets to be read: Wheatley, Harper, Grimke, Spencer, Brooks, Dove and Walker)

Our class webpage, twist.lib.uiowa.edu/aawom, contains pages for “study questions” and “resources.” The latter contains bibliographies, art galleries, links to African-American sites and other materials. I will post most of the class handouts on the site, under “assignments,” “study questions” or “resources.”
You are asked to post to the discussion page every other week, for a total of 7 roughly one-and-a-half-page commentaries during the term. (Our “user i. d.” is aawom, and our password is “song”). Please number and title your postings, e. g. posting no. 1, Phyllis Wheatley’s Views on Freedom. Some of these postings, at least, should draw on outside sources (a painting, book from special collections, critical article, or periodical) and at least three should respond in some way to the posting of another student.

You are also asked to write two essays of 6+ pages each, which develop a sustained discussion or critical argument in the context of critical and historical sources. You are welcome to discuss your proposed topics and the organization of your papers with me, and you should submit a title, bibliography and outline one week before the paper itself. One essay must be handed in the week after spring break, and the second, which will contrast two or more of the works we have studied, in finals week. During finals week, in lieu of an official exam, we will meet for a class session in which students summarize the contents of their respective papers.

Suggested Topics for Research/Critical Essay

The Concept of “Freedom” in Phillis Wheatley’s Poetry

Parental Relationships and Slavery: Wheatley, Harper, Jacobs, Crafts

Poetic Language and Violence in Wheatley/Harper/Grimke

Religion and Anti-Slavery Protest in Wheatley/Harper

Gender and Slavery in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl/Children and Slavery/Sexuality and Slavery

The Relationships Between Women/Black and White Women in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Rhetorical Audience in Harreit Jacobs/Hannah Crafts; Political Messages in HJ/HC

The Nature and Role of Religion in Harriet Jacobs/Frances Harper/Hannah Crafts’s The Bondwoman’s Narrative/Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig

Dangerous Escape: The Escape North in Harriet Jacobs/ Hannah Crafts

The Story of Esther in Modern Guise: The Vashtis of Frances Harper and Anne Spencer

Harriet Jacobs and Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig: Oppression North and South

Family Dynamics Under Slavery: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Our Nig

Prefaces and Testimonials to African-American Narratives: Wheatley, Jacobs, Crafts, Wilson

Autobiography vs. Fiction: The Blending of Genres in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, Our Nig

Dramatic Poems and Monologues as Protest Narratives (Frances Harper, Anne Spencer)

The Rhetoric of Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells/Irony and Argument in the Polemics of Sojourner Truth and Ida B.Wells

Sojourner Truth’s Arguments for Sexual and Racial Equality

Violence Against African-Americans in Ida B. Wells and Angelina Grimke/Anne Spencer

A Pattern of Violence: From Phillis Wheatley to Angelina Grimke/ Harriet Jacobs/The Bondwoman’s Narrative/Frances Harper/Harriet Wilson

Violence and Hypocrisy in Harriet Jacobs/The Bondwoman’s Narrative/Frances Harper/Harriet Wilson

Reversing Racism: The Portrayal of Whiteness in HC and AS/Undermining Racist Art in BN and Anne Spencer’s Sevignes