Course Description:
This course explores contemporary African-American, Native-American, and Mexican-American novels through the theoretical frameworks of cultural studies, Marxism, feminist theory, and postmodern theory. We will read and discuss a remarkably diverse group of novels, from ceremonial "realism" to wild trickster tales, from magical realism to postmodern metafiction, from novels that assert a serious, politicized consciousness to those that revel in subversive laughter and parody. A slide presentation of contemporary multicultural art will introduce many of the questions and problematics that will inform our reading, questions that emphasize the politics of representation, such as: how do the texts intervene into their cultural and literary landscapes; how does literature from and about marginalized cultures attempt to upset the structures of marginalization; what kinds of cultural work do various historical representations undertake; do the novels assert an identity politics that affirms racial or gendered identity or do they promote anti-essentialist notions of race and gender? We will also consider to what extent the novels participate in a postmodern style, aesthetic, or politics, to what extent they challenge the parameters of postmodernism and why any of this matters. Depending upon the interests of the class, we will conclude with a video of a performance artist or a recent film, such as _Paris is Burning _, _Border Brujo, M. Butterfly _ or _Daughters of the Dust_.
Course Requirements:
The fundamental requirement is that you come well prepared to actively participate in every class. Eight short response papers (2-3 double-spaced typed pages) will be required. These will be due at the beginning of class each week and will be handed in again, gathered together in a folder, at the final class period. (Papers will be due weeks II through XII, but you can skip three weeks of the eleven.) These papers are not meant to be fully fleshed out arguments or analyses but instead, should sketch out various approaches to the novels, explore interpretive quandaries, and raise significant and provocative questions. The response papers will receive comments but not grades. Two brief presentations, either a response to the weeks' readings or a summary of criticism of a novel will also be required. A 20-page seminar paper and an oral presentation of an abstract of that paper will be due the final or penultimate class period. I will discuss the specific requirements for the seminar paper in class.
Required Texts:
Three packets of criticism and theory, available from Joe's copies.
Maxine Hong Kingston, _The Woman Warrior; _
Louise Erdich, _Tracks_
Leslie Marmon Silko, _Ceremony_
Gerald Vizenor, _Darkness in St. Louis Bearheart_
Tom‡s Rivera. _. . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him_
Ana Castillo, _So Far from God_
Alfredo VŽa, Jr., _La Maravilla_
Randall Kenan, _A Visitation of Spirits_
Ishmael Reed, _Flight to Canada_
Toni Morrison, _Beloved._
Syllabus
Introduction: Postmodernism and Multiculturalism
Week I. January 18: Theoretical Essays--Read for first class
Linda Hutcheon, "Theorizing the Postmodern"
Fredric Jameson, "The Politics of Theory: Ideological Positions in the Postmodernism Debate"
Jane Flax, "Postmodernism and Gender Relations in Feminist Theory"
Cornel West, "Black Strivings in a Twilight Civilization"
Guillermo GomŽz-Pe–a. "The Border Is. . . " and "The Multicultural Paradigm: An Open Letter to the National Arts Community"
E. San Juan Jr. "Problematizing Multiculturalism and the 'Common Culture'"
Rafael PerŽz-Torres, "Nomads and Migrants: Negotiating a Multicultural Postmodernism"
The Flight from History and the Embrace of Memory
Week II. January 25: Ishmael Reed, _Flight to Canada _
Jean Baudrillard. "The Evil Demon of Images and the Precession of Simulacra" [P]
Ihab Hassan, definitional chart of modernism and postmodernism [P]
Linda Hutcheon, "Intertextuality, Parody, and the Discourses of History"[P]
Joseph C. Schopp, "'Riding Bareback, Backwords Through a Wood of Words': Ishmael Reed's Revision of the Slave Narrative" [P]
Week III. February 1: Toni Morrison, _Beloved_
Hortense J. Spillers. "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book" [P]
Caroline Rody. "Toni Morrison's Beloved: History, 'Rememory,' and a 'Clamor for a Kiss'" [P]
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, "Facing the Mariachis" [P]
James Berger, "Ghosts of Liberalism: _Beloved _ and the Moynihan Report"
Marxism and Chicano Cultural Studies
Week IV. February 8: Tom‡s Rivera, and the earth did not devour him
Ram—n Sald’var. "Beyond Good and Evil: Utopian Dialectics in Tom‡s Rivera and Oscar Zeta Acosta" and "Conclusion: The Reconstruction of American Literary History" [P]
JosŽ E. Limon, "Culture and Bedevilment" [P]
Tricksters, Ceremonies, and Artifacts: Native American Representations
Week V. February 15: Leslie Marmon Silko, _Ceremony_
Swan, Edith. "Feminine Perspectives at Laguna Pueblo: Silko's _Ceremony._"
another article, to be announced
Week VI. February 22: Louise Erdich, _Tracks_
Nancy J. Peterson, "History, Postmodernism, and Louise Erdrich's _Tracks"_ [P]
Catherine Rainwater, "Reading Between Worlds: Narrativity in the Fiction of Louise Erdich" [P]
Week VII. February 29: Gerald Vizenor, _Darkness in St. Louis Bearheart_
Gerald Vizenor. "Trickster Discourse: Comic Holotropes and Language Games" [P]
another article, to be announced
Identity/Epistemology/Consciousness
Week VIII. March 7: Theoretical Essays
Stuart Hall, "Minimal Selves" [P]
Henry Louis Gates, "Beyond the Culture Wars: Identities in Dialogue"[P]
bell hooks, "Marginality as a Site of Resistance"[P]
Gloria Anzaldœa. "La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness" [P]
Diana Fuss. "'Race' Under Erasure? Poststructuralist Afro-American Literary Theory"[P]
Judith Butler, "Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism" [P]
Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges" [P]
Chela Sandoval. "U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World" [P]
At the Center of the Margin: The View from Buckeye Road and the Laughter of La Loca
Week IX. March 14: Alfredo Ve‡ Jr., _La Maravilla_
Alaimo, "Cultural Difference and Epistemic Rupture: The Vanishing Acts of Guillermo G—mez-Pe–a and Alfredo VŽa Jr.,"
Spring Break
Week X. March 28: Ana Castillo, _So Far from God_
Angie Chabram Dernersesian, "And, Yes,. . . The Earth Did Part: On the Splitting of Chicana/o Subjectivity"
The Politics of Identity
Week XI. April 4: Randal Kenan, _A Visitation of Spirits_
Marcos Becquer,"Snap!Thology and Other Discursive Practices in Tongues Untied"
Bob McRuer, "Queer Locations/Queer Transformations"
Postmodern Histories/Postmodern Selves
Week XII. April 11: Maxine Hong Kingston, _The Woman Warrior_
Philip Bryan Harper "Postmodernism and the Decentered Subject" and "Maxine Hong Kingston's Postmodern Life Story"[P]
Week XIII. April 18: Video of Guillermo G—mez-Pe–a's "Border Brujo" performance art.
Conclusions
Weeks XIV. April 25: Seminar Presentations
Week XV. May 2: Seminar Presentations
Literature Seminars
Literature HP & Program
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