African-American, Native American, Latino/a-American and Asian-American Literatures in America
Fall 1394
Office Times: Sat. and Sun. 8:00-9:30
I. Course Description: In this course, we will deal with American literature written by minority or ethnic and immigrant writers, not categorized as canonical. Our focus will be on the representation of life stories and cultural and social experiences arising from diverse ethnic communities living in the US, such as, as the title of the course suggests, Native-, African-, Asian-Americans, as well as Latinos/as. Given that all such communities live in the US and bring their cultures to the mainstream literature, we will first recognize ethnic and racial stereotypes established by white hegemony against these minorities. Then, we will see how such attitudes affect the assimilation/segregation of minorities into the majority culture and society despite/for their cultural and historical heritage and memory. We shall also see how the minority’s life experiences are translated into American culture and language in terms of form and content. Eventually, we will investigate the clash of cultures and narratives based on their response to the dominant American Dream. This course should enable students to analyze and criticize the identity that takes shape in this multicultural context, the matter of ethnicity in America, the formation of the canon, and the issue of nationality. Thus the following items will provide students with clues to ask themselves questions while examining the texts closely and then discussing issues in class:
1) What are ethnic stereotypes and how do ethnic writers respond to them?
2) How can the phrase “ethnic writer” be defined?
3) How do “ethnic” approaches, languages, themes, worldviews, and aesthetics differ from the “non-ethnic”?
4) In what ways have ethnic writers contributed to American literature and culture?
5) How are literary canons and sub-canons constructed?
6) How are ethnic experiences “translated” into the American culture or language?
7) How does ethnicity show itself in relation to race, class, gender and nationality?
8) What do immigrants experience in the process of becoming American or resisting to become so?
9) Can you investigate the concept of bridging cultures in terms of individuals, families, and communities?
10) Where is the location of American ethnic writers culturally and historically?
11) Discuss the matter of assimilation versus cultural heritage and memory?
12) What are multicultural perspectives on American national myths and narratives?
13) Discuss representations of oppression and strategies for social change?
14) How does migration influence the literary imagination?
II. Texts-To-Be-Read: African-American, Native American, Latino/a-American and Asian-American Literatures in America (2) for the fall semester 1394 is built around the following materials:
A) Literary Readings
1) Ceremony (Leslie Marmon Silko)
2) The Day to Rainy Mountain (N. Scott Momaday)
3) Where the Pavement Ends (William S. Yellow Robe Jr.)
4) New Native American Drama (Hanay Geiogamah)
5) “Ghost Dance” (Alexie Sherman)
6) Peter Blue Cloud’s Poems from The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature (ed. by Geary Hobson)
7) “The House on the Mango Street” (Sandra Cisnero)
8) The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Alex Hayley & Malcolm X)
9) Zora Neale Hurston: Collected Plays
10) The Woman Warrior (Maxine Hong Kingston)
11) Chinglish (David Henry Hwang)
12) The Madman & The Prophet (Khalil Gibran)
13) The Namesake & “The Interpreter of Maladies” (Jhumpa Lahiri)
14) The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
B) Theoretical Readings
1) Dictionary of Native American Literature, ed. Andrew Wiget
2) “Native American Writing: Beginning to 1967”, by Rouff, Dictionary, pp. 141-150.
3) “Population, Reservation, and Federal Indian Policy”, by Janke, Dictionary, pp. 151-168.
4) “Contemporary Native American Writing: An Overview”, by J. Bruchac, Dictionary, pp. 295-312.
5) “Critical Approaches to Native American Literature”, by A. Krupat, Dictionary, pp. 313-321.
6) “The Style of Indian Poetry”, by H. A. Howard, American Indian Poetry, pp. 21-41.
7) “Leslie Marmon Silko (March 1, 1948-)” by Elaine A. Jahner, Dictionary, pp. 478-89.
8) “Narrative as Ritual: Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony, 1977” & “The World of Story in the Writings of Leslie Marmon Silko and
Linda Hogan”, by Helen Mary Dennis, Native American Literature: Towards a Spatialized Reading, pp. 40-69.
9) “Navarre Scott Momaday”, by S. Scarberry-Garicia, Dictionary, pp. 443-456.
10) “Hanay Geiogamah (1945- )”, by Sue M. Johnson, Dictionary, pp. 411-415.
11) “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature” by Toni Morrison
12) “Chinese-American Personality and Mental Health”, by Sue and Sue, A Companion to Asian-American Studies, ed. by Kent Ono,
pp. 17-34.
13) “The Ghetto of the Mind: Notes on the Historical Psychology of Chinese America”, by Ben R. Tong, A Companion to Asian-
American Studies, pp. 35-72.
14) “Chapter One” from A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki
15) “The Literatures of America: A Comparative Discipline” by Paul Lauter
16) “Telling the Stories through the Stage: A Conversation with William Yellow Robe” by Elvira Pulitano
C) Movies and Documentaries (to be seen out of the class)
1) Combination Platter
2) Daughter from Danang
3) The Dutchman
4) Skins
5) Smoke Signals
6) Ghost Dance
III. Assignments & Grades: Students should study the texts that are assigned to them by the instructor for the following session. Each text or extract should be read before students come to class. Texts will be discussed in one or two or more sessions depending on the course of the class and the span of time required. The material for each session will be divided among students as lectures, so all students will have to give informal lectures in each session. Thus, the class will be like a symposium whereby everybody has to discuss matters for that session. Constant participation and good contributions to class discussions during the semester will receive up to 4 points. As for formal lectures, students are supposed to come up with a worthwhile topic to speak about in the venue of Research Week. The project will be more valuable if all students concentrate their efforts to discuss a single topic from different viewpoints in a discussion (conference) board. If done perfectly, each student will receive 5 points for this activity. This activity should be done in Research Week, so students should arrange things with the conference manager for this year’s Research Week. Another formal assignment for the semester would be the task of translating parts of Malcolm X Speaks, Selected Speeches and Statements which will be published as a book with students’ names under each chapter translation. This activity will have 5 points. There will be a final exam of 8 points with essay-type questions related to the material discussed and lectured during the semester. More than one (1) session of absence will be reported to the Education Office and the absentee will be deprived of the final exam. All these scores will amount to the final grade of 20: informal class discussions (up to 4) + Research Week discussion board activity (5) + chapter translation (5) + final exam (8) = 20.
IV. Week-by-Week Reading Schedule: Please note that this schedule tells students what they need already to have read when they sit down in class in each session. Note also that, once in possession of the Schedule, no one should be in doubt about the assignments.
Week One: 21 Sahrivar 94
Introduction
Week Two: 28 Sahrivar 94
1. Ceremony (Leslie Marmon Silko)
2. “Leslie Marmon Silko (March 1, 1948-)” by Elaine A. Jahner, Dictionary, pp. 478-89.
3. “Narrative as Ritual: Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony, 1977” & “The World of Story in the Writings of Leslie Marmon Silko and
Linda Hogan”, by Helen Mary Dennis, Native American Literature: Towards a Spatialized Reading, pp. 40-69.
Week Three: 4 Mehr 94
1. The Day to Rainy Mountain (N. Scott Momaday)
2. “Navarre Scott Momaday”, by S. Scarberry-Garicia, Dictionary, pp. 443-456.
3. “Population, Reservation, and Federal Indian Policy”, by Janke, Dictionary, pp. 151-168.
Week Four: 11 Mehr 94
1. Where the Pavement Ends (William S. Yellow Robe Jr.)
2. “Telling the Stories through the Stage: A Conversation with William Yellow Robe” by Elvira Pulitano
3. “Contemporary Native American Writing: An Overview”, by J. Bruchac, Dictionary, pp. 295-312.
Week Five: 18 Mehr 94
1. New Native American Drama (Hanay Geiogamah) & “Ghost Dance” (Alexie Sherman)
2. “Hanay Geiogamah (1945- )”, by Sue M. Johnson, Dictionary, pp. 411-415.
3. “Critical Approaches to Native American Literature”, by A. Krupat, Dictionary, pp. 313-321.
Week Six: 25 Mehr 94
1. Peter Blue Cloud’s Poems from The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature (ed. by Geary Hobson)
2. “The Style of Indian Poetry”, by H. A. Howard, American Indian Poetry, pp. 21-41.
Week Seven: 2 Aban 94
OFF
Week Eight: 9 Aban 94
1. “The House on the Mango Street” (Sandra Cisnero)
2. “Chapter One” from A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki
Week Nine: 16 Aban 94
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Alex Hayley & Malcolm X)
Week Ten: 23 Aban 94
1. Zora Neale Hurston: Collected Plays
2. “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature” by Toni Morrison
Week Eleven: 30 Aban 94
1. Chinglish (David Henry Hwang)
2. “Chinese-American Personality and Mental Health”, by Sue and Sue, A Companion to Asian-American Studies, ed. by Kent Ono,
pp. 17-34.
Week Twelve: 7 Azar 94
The Woman Warrior (Maxine Hong Kingston)
2. “The Ghetto of the Mind: Notes on the Historical Psychology of Chinese America”, by Ben R. Tong, A Companion to Asian-
American Studies, pp. 35-72.
Week Thirteen: 14 Azar 94
The Madman & The Prophet (Khalil Gibran)
Week Fourteen: 21 Azar 94
OFF: “The Literatures of America: A Comparative Discipline” by Paul Lauter
Week Fifteen: 28 Azar 94
1. The Namesake & “The Interpreter of Maladies” (Jhumpa Lahiri)
2. Discussion of “The Literatures of America: A Comparative Discipline” by Paul Lauter
Week Sixteen: 5 Dey 94
1. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
2. {Continued} Discussion of “The Literatures of America: A Comparative Discipline” by Paul Lauter
Sources for Further Studies
- Allen, P. G. (Laguna/Sioux). The Woman Who Owned the Shadows. Albion, California: Spinsters, 1983.
- Aranda, J. F. When We Arrive: A New Literary History of Mexican America Tucson: University of Arizona, 2003.
- Bedford, D. R. (Minsee). Tsali. San Francisco: Indian Historian, 1972.
- Brooks, J. American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African- American and Native American Literatures. New York: Oxford University, 2003.
- Bruchac, J. III (ed.). The Greenfield Review 9, Special Issue nos. 3 and 4, 1981.
- Cook-Lynn, E. (Sioux). Then Badger Said This. New York: Vantage, 1977.
- Dussel, E. The Invention of the Americas: The Eclipse of “the Other” and the Myth of Modernity. Trans. Michael D. Barber. New York: Continuum, 1995.
- Eduardo, R. del Rio (ed.). The Prentice Hall Anthology of Latino Literature, 2001.
- Fisher, D. (ed.). The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.
- Fleck, R. Critical Perspectives on Native American Fiction. Washington: Three Continents, 1993.
- Green, R. (ed.) That's What She Said. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1983.
- Hill, E. and Hatch, J.V. A History of African American Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003.
- Hobson, G. (ed.). The Remembered Earth. Albuquerque: Red Earth, 1979.
- Kibria, N. Becoming Asian American: Second-Generation Chinese and Korean Identities. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2002.
- Kim, E. “Asian American Literature” (1910–1945). Columbia Literary History of the United States. Eds. Emory Elliott et al. New York: Columbia University, 1988: 811–21.
- Krupat, A. New Voices in Native American Literary Criticism. Washington: Smithsonian, 1993.
- Lerner, A. Dancing on the Rim of the World: An Anthology of Contemporary Northwest Native American Writing. Tucson: University of Arizona, 1990.
- Lincoln, K. Native American Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California, 1983.
- Little, D. American Orientalism. The United States and the Middle East Since 1945. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina, 2002.
- Mann, C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. New York: Vintage, 2005.
- Marable, M. and Mullings, L. (eds.). Let Nobody Turn Us Around. Voices of Resistance, Reform and Renewal. An African-American Anthology. New York and Oxford: Rowan & Littlefield, 2009.
- McNickle, D'Arcy. Wind from an Enemy Sky. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977.
- Momaday, N. S. (Kiowa). House Made of Dawn. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.
- Nasnaga/Roger R. (Shawnee). Indians' Summer. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
- Neate, W. Tolerating Ambiguity: Ethnicity and Community in Chicano/a Writing. New York: Peter Lang, 1998.
- Niatum, D. (ed.). Carriers of the Dream Wheel: Contemporary Native American Poetry. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
- Ono, K. A. (ed.). A Companion to Asian American Studies. Malden, MA. And Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
- Ortiz, S. (Acoma). Howbah Indians. Tucson: Blue Moon, 1978.
- Orgel, S. Imagining Shakespeare. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
--- . (ed.). Earth Power Coming: Short Fiction in Native American Literature. Tsaile, Arizona: Navajo Community College, 1983.
- Paredes, R. “Mexican American Literature” (1910–1945). Columbia Literary History of the United States. Eds. Emory Elliott et al. New York: Columbia University, 1988: 800–10.
- Perman, M. (2001). Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888–1908. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001.
- Pierre, C. G. (Colville). Autumn's Bounty. San Antonio, Texas: Naylor, 1972.
- Riley, P. Growing Up Native American: an Anthology. New York: Morrow, 1993.
- Rosen, K. (ed.). The Man to Send Rain Clouds. New York: Viking, 1974.
- Robinson, C. J. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2000.
- Rowe, J. C. Literary Culture and U.S. Imperialism: From the Revolution to World War II. New York: Oxford University, 2000.
- Rowe, J. C.The New American Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2002.
- Rubin, D. and Verheul, J. American Multiculturalism after 9/11. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University, 2009.
- Ruoff, A. L. and Ward, J. Jr. Redefining American Literary History. New York: MLA, 1990.
- Salazer, I. “Can You Go Home Again? Transgression and Transformation in African-American Women’s and Chicana Literary Practice.” Postcolonial Theory and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature. Ed. Amritjit Singh and Peter Schmidt, 388–411. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 2000.
- Silko, L. M. (Laguna Pueblo). Ceremony. New York: Viking, 1977.
--- . Storyteller. New York: Seaver, 1982.
- Slotkin, R. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth- Century America. New York: Atheneum, 1992.
- Smith, V. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. London and Chicago: FD, 1997.
- Sollors, Werner. Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture. NY and Oxford: Oxford University, 1986.
- Stensland, A. Literature By and About the American Indian: An Annotated Bibliography. Urbana: NCTE, 1979.
- Swann, B. and Arnold Krupat. Recovering the Word: Essays on North American Literature.
--- . On the Translation of Native American Literatures. Washington: Smithsonian, 1992.
- Vitkus, D. Turning Turk: English Theater and the Multicultural Mediterranean, 1570–1630. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
- Vizenor, G. (Anishanabe). Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart. Minneapolis: Truck, 1978.
--- . Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literature.
--- . Word Arrows. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1978.
- Welch, J. (Blackfeet/Gros Ventre). The Death of Jim Loney. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
- Wiget, A. Native American Literature. Boston: Twayne, 1985.
---. (ed.). Dictionary of Native American Literature. Boston: Twayne, 1994.
- Wilson, Jr., C. E. Race and Racism in Literature. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood, 2005.
- Yancey, G. A. Who is White? Latinos, Asians, and the New Black/Nonblack Divide. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003.
- Zryd, M. (2006). “The Academy and the Avant-Garde: A Relationship of Dependence and Resistance.” Cinema Journal 45.2: 17–42.
نكات اخلاق حرفه‌اي دانشجويان:
1. ديرآمدن به كلاس و خارج شدن از كلاس به مدت بيش از 2 يا 3 دقيقه به منزله يك جلسه غيبت محسوب خواهد شد.
2. استفاده از موبايل، لپ‌تاپ، تبلت يا هر ماسماسك ديگري در كلاس ممنوع است مگر در موارد مجاز كه توسط مدرس اعلام شود.
3. دانشجوياني كه بيش از 1 جلسه غيبت دارند لطفاً خودشان براي حذف درس اقدام كنند و گرنه اين حذف براي ايشان انجام خواهد شد. آوردن هر گونه گواهي پزشكي يا دليل‌تراشي براي توجيه غيبت‌ها باعث مجاز شدن آنها نخواهد شد و تمامي غيبت‌هاي غيرمجاز به آموزش گزارش مي‌شود. اين بند بسيار جدي است، دانشجويان عزيز بعداً نگويند: «ما اطلاع نداشتيم.»
4. ضبط صداي استاد در كلاس و به هنگام تدريس از نظر اينجانب غيرقانوني است.
براي همه شما آرزوي تندرستي و شادكامي دارم و اميدوارم نيمسالي پربار و پركار داشته باشيد كه جوهره زندگي كار و تلاش است، و سستي، بي‌انگيزگي، و تنبلي از دام‌هاي شيطان.