Παρουσίαση/Προβολή

(ENL443) -  Σταματίνα Δημακοπούλου

Περιγραφή Μαθήματος

In “Harlem”,  the first poem of the sequence “Lenox Avenue Mural” which appeared in the 1951 Montage of a Dream Deferred, Langston Hughes wondered whether ‘a dream deferred’, ‘fester[s] like a sore’ or ‘explode[s]’. Completed in 1948 and published in 1951, Hughes’ collection is a poignant return to the ‘new negro renaissance’ a few years before the Civil Rights movement started gaining momentum in the US. A few years later and in the midst of the anticipation and disillusion that the Civil Rights movement had generated, Amiri Baraka in his “Return of the Native” which appeared in the 1969 Black Magic, called Harlem ‘vicious modernism,’ expressing thereby the discontent but also the historicist impulses and activist imperatives of his time. Blindspots aside, and regardless of whether the ‘New Negro’ Movement failed or remained an incomplete project, the Harlem Renaissance produced bold and complex representations of black life and probed the construction of racial identity, through the intersections of race, class and gender.

Thw course returns to the New Negro Renaissance in the wake of important shifts in contemporary thought and cultural history, most notably in the work of, for example, scholars like Saidiya Hartman and Fred Moten, whose important genealogical and revisionary work returns to the aesthetics and politics of a black, African American modernism.

In the first part of the course, we will focus on troubling co-articulations of race and racism, gender, sexuality, and self-determination in the period of the Harlem Renaissance through renewed readings of Nella Larsen’s Passing (1928) and Wallace Thurman’s Infants of the Spring (1932). In the second part of the course, we will focus on James Baldwin’s fictional and largely autobiographical account of Harlem in his first novel, Go Tell it On the Mountain (1953), and on Toni Morrison’s return to the legacies of slavery and of the Great Migration in the black urban cultures of Harlem in Jazz (1992).   We will approach these texts, through Saidiya Hartman’s notion of ‘wayward lives’ in order to reflect on how forms of resistance and visions of change are formulated and envisioned in literary texts that also fundamentally engage the aspirations and the vulnerability of human existence.

It is essential that you read the novels that we will study in their entirety, and become familiar with the intellectual, historical and cultural contexts of these texts. Signposts for your study of recommended resources, bibliography and criticism are provided in class handouts. It is essential that you become familiar with the richness of African American culture in order to approach critically the texts that we will study; you can access numerous links and resources on the e-class. As this is an option course, you need to come to class prepared, and bring your questions and ideas. All seminar material can be accessed on the eclass.

 

Aims and Learning Outcomes:

 

The aim of the course is to offer a sophisticated awareness of the conditions of the emergence of a black modernism in the United States, through a specific focus on the black urban cultures of New York in the twentieth-century, and on the important legacies of Harlem to postwar African American writers.

By the end of the course, you will be able to situate literary production to its contexts, reflect on how politics and aesthetics intersect, and how literature and cultural production at large can challenge and expose systemic forces of oppression, racism, class and gender barriers and stereotypes.

 

Upon completion of the course, you will have substantially developed and advanced your reflective and analytical skills, through close readings that combine a critical awareness of historical contexts, and wider cultural shifts in the twentieth-century; you will have grasped the interrelations between literary texts, the politics of representation, and the ways in which literature may be generative of renewed perceptions of history, society, and human life.

 

By the end of the course you will have developed a range of skills, including the ability to develop and elaborate sound arguments and make imaginative connections between different fields of social and cultural life; you will be able to formulate informed readings, based on secondary sources, and on primary sources from the immediate context of the texts that we will study.

 

The format of the requirements of the course will allow you to work in a structured and organised manner, to participate and work creatively, and to develop your interpersonal and emotional intelligence skills, as well as your social and political awareness.

Content Disclaimer

The course is committed to promoting civic values, social and political awareness, reciprocity, inclusivity, and plurality. In the event a student finds topics and content included in this course sensitive, they should get in touch with the course convenor.

Academic Integrity:

As this is a third year option course, you are expected to study secondary bibliographical material: for your independent study and coursework, it is essential that you are aware of what constitutes plagiarism and the appropriate and ethical use of AI in your study. Please read carefully the entries on the relevant webpage  of University College London: https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/referencing-plagiarism/acknowledging-genAI.

The use of Generative AI for coursework is prohibited and will result in an automatic failure.

Integrity and research ethics are fundamental and essential to the mission and to the role of higher education in our societies. The university classroom and academic study at large are spaces of trust, solidarity, honesty, of free expression and creativity, and responsibility. It is essential that we uphold the value of original work that is the product of our intellectual labour. Consider carefully the fair and ethical use of new technologies and the huge environmental impact of AI technology in terms of carbon emissions, electronic waste and detrimental impact on ecosystems. The training of AI algorithms is undertaken using the work of individuals (writers, artists, academics, etc.) who have not been consulted on nor compensated for the infringement of their copyright or intellectual ownership of the material used. The training of AI algorithms is also implicated in the extractive and exploitative use of Global South labour. Every use of AI contributes to this environmental damage and exploitation. AI is of course not ‘intelligence’ but computer algorithms, either LLMs (large language models) or generative AI (deep learning models) trained on existing data.

 

Assessment:

Option 1

Mark Breakdown:

Short Reflective Essay 1/In-class Writing and Revision : 25% [date TBC]

Attendance / Seminar Participation: 15%

Research Essay /Individual / Collaborative Project  30% [Submission date TBC]

Short Reflective Essay 2 /In-class Writing and Revision : 30% [date TBC]

Option 2

Mark Breakdown:

Attendance / Seminar/ Roundtable Participation: 20%

Final Exam 80%

Option 3

For students who do not wish to be assessed by coursework, and/or intend to take the course without attending classes, a  final exam weighted at 100% will be held during the Fall Semester exam period.

Ημερομηνία δημιουργίας

Κυριακή 12 Αυγούστου 2018