Special Studies Programs
Asian American Studies,
Literature Since 1830:

MULTICULTURALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Context: When I began teaching at Michigan in 1990, a course periodized as covering literature since 1830 was considered a "great works" one, in either or both British and American literature. It followed in historical sequence from two other courses in earlier periods. My syllabus in 1990 resembled the one below. Students told me that from the published course descriptions they chose this section because of the excitement (including surprise, satisfaction, and indeed a degree of doubt and criticism) of seeing "ethnic" literatures considered among "great works" of literature in English. Standards and expectations, then, became the first main topics of discussion in the course. By 1993, when I taught the version below, our English undergraduate curriculum had changed, and the sections of English 372 now offered a wide variety of choices. The excitement over questioning standards for "greatness" had somewhat faded. But attention in the course shifted toward other important questions--questions about dialogical versus monological ways of reading literary works and cultures, about literature and the historical construction of culture, about who and what are "American," and how we go about defining or conceiving "American culture" in view of the "diverse" works studied and their interactions. Among the understandings we reach is the realization that these questions are old, foundational, and ever-central ones in and for this nation.

MULTICULTURALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Winter Term 1993

Department of English Language and Literature The University of Michigan

SYLLABUS

DESCRIPTION: This section of English 372 is a study of concepts of multiculturalism and history as narrated or symbolized and interpreted in American literary works since 1846. The course begins with works which reflect concerns in nineteenth-century America to create, recognize, or question an American culture in the face not only of a continuing "English" legacy but also of multiracial, multicultural, women's and men's experiences distinctive to Americans and their national and international aspirations and "destiny." The course goes on to focus on twentieth-century works within traditions of Euro-American, Afro-American, Asian American, Latina, and Native American literatures where authors' views of multiculturalism play central parts. Relations between culture and how an author conceives of history are examined, particularly in cases where an emphasis on history, historical contexts, and historical construction of cultures, in the works studied, is counterpointed by themes and motifs of broken, forgotten, and repressed histories. Book-length works by Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, John Okada, Leslie Silko, Toni Morrison, and Sandra Cisneros will be read in the course. Their books will be supplemented with readings by the authors' contemporaries. Three papers and frequent quizzes are required. 4 credits.

INSTRUCTORS: Stephen H. Sumida, Associate Professor of English and of American Culture; Erin Desmond, Graduate Student in English.

OFFICE HOURS: Sumida, MWF 9:30-10:30 a.m. and by appointment, 2629 Haven Hall, 764-6356; Desmond, hours to be announced, 33 Angell Hall, 764-0381.

REQUIRED TEXTS: These texts are ordered for our course at Shaman Drum Bookshop, 313 South State Street, Ann Arbor.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening and Selected Stories Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek Samuel L. Clemens [Mark Twain], Huckleberry Finn William Faulkner, Light in August Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God Herman Melville, Typee Toni Morrison, Beloved John Okada, No-No Boy Leslie Silko, Ceremony Richard Wright, Native Son.

In addition, a Coursepack is required. Beginning in the second week of the term, it will be available at Michigan Document Service, 603 Church Street, Ann Arbor.

SCHEDULE: The readings listed below are required. The schedule tends to fall into a routine--generally, a novel a week (four hours of class)--and this enables us to study at least this minimum number of works in an immense literature, "American literature" seen "multiculturally." Please study the schedule when we begin the course and, of course, as we proceed through the term. To meet this schedule we will have to pace ourselves and individually anticipate upcoming work by starting on it early when possible.

6 January 1992 (Wednesday only): Introductions and assignments. Definitions of key terms and concepts: paradigms for "multiculturalism" and the American Republic. By Monday, 11 January, read Melville's Typee. What, as it turns out, is the narrator's understanding of the Typee people? What is Melville's understanding in showing this outcome?

11-13 Jan.: Melville, Typee, and encounters with the Noble Savage in American literature. Coursepack: selections from Mary Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie; James Fenimore Cooper, "The Pigeon Shoot," from The Pioneers, and "Magua's Speech to the Delawares," from The Last of the Mohegans; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; and Chief Seattle. Read these selections by Wednesday, 13 January.

18 Jan.: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. No class meeting. Please attend the programs of your choice.

20 Jan.: Read by this day: Twain, Huckleberry Finn. Discussion of moral dilemmas. Coursepack: also read for this day the excerpt from Toni Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Spoken."

25-27 Jan.: Manifest Destiny, Its Proponents and its Critics: Melville, Twain, Whitman, and Dickinson. Coursepack: selections from Whitman and Dickinson; Stephen H. Sumida, from And the View from the Shore.

1-3 February: Read by Monday: Chopin, The Awakening and Selected Stories: Constructs of and Responses to European American Multiculturalism, Descent, and Gendering.

8-10 Feb.: Culture and Multiculturalism in Modernism. Coursepack: selections from Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Gertrude Stein.

15-17 Feb.: Read by Monday: Faulkner, Light in August. Race, History, Memory, and Failures of Historical Vision. PAPER 1 DUE: FRIDAY, 19 FEBRUARY 1993.

20-28 Feb.: Spring Break.

1-3 March: Variously Theorizing Literary Multiculturalism in the United States: Proponents and Opponents. Read by Wednesday, 3 March: Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Coursepack: selection to be announced.

8-10 Mar.: Monday: Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (continuing discussion). Wednesday: Wright, Native Son.

15-17 Mar. Wright, Native Son (continuing discussion). Coursepack: Abdul R. JanMohamed, "Negating the Negation as a Form of Affirmation in Minority Discourse: The Construction of Richard Wright as Subject"; and selection from bell hooks.

PAPER 2 DUE: MONDAY, 22 MARCH 1993. 22-24 Mar.: Read by Monday: Okada, No-No Boy. Coursepack: Issei Poetry; Background Fact Sheet for No-No Boy; Stephen H. Sumida, "Japanese American Moral Dilemmas."

29-31 Mar.: Read by Monday: Silko, Ceremony. Coursepack: Barry Lopez, "Buffalo."

FINAL PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE: MONDAY, 5 APRIL 1993. 5-7 Apr.: Read by Monday: Morrison, Beloved. Coursepack: selection to be announced.

12-14 Apr.: Read by Monday: Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek.

19 Apr.: Review and discussion of Final Paper questions.

FINAL PAPER DUE: 26 APRIL 1993.

PAPERS, QUIZZES, ATTENDANCE, GRADES, REQUIREMENTS:

Papers 1 and 2 are to be three to five typed, double-spaced pages each, on a choice of topics you will be given. The Final Paper, of seven to ten pages, will be on a topic you choose, research, and develop for yourself within the thematic (and conceptual, theoretical) parameters of the course, "multiculturalism in American literature." If you find you need advice about revising a draft of any of these papers, then please see your instructor with a draft prior to the due dates indicated above, when the final draft is due.

There will be no exams in our section of English 372. But there will be quizzes throughout the semester. Some will be announced, others not. Quizzes will test your knowledge of facts and concepts discussed in assigned readings, lectures, and in class. Besides aiming to prompt you to be prepared for class and to credit you for keeping up with our coursework, the quizzes materially provide one means for recording attendance and therefore crediting you as you deserve. The quizzes are the basis for that part of your grade which you are most in control of yourself.

Attendance in class is required. Missing even one, crucial class meeting can result in writing a howler of a paper on the topic discussed that day. Missing quizzes because of absences means certain disaster. On the other hand, not only can the quizzes reward attendance and preparedness, but they also can guide the writing of papers, but you have to attend class for this guidance to make sense.

Your final grade for the course will consist of the following: Paper 1, Paper 2, and your cumulative quiz score will each count for 20% of your final grade. The Final Paper will count for 40%--obviously a heavy load. Your course grade is not assured, then, until the entire course is over, since so much of your grade is earned near the end. In general, your essays will be graded on how well you understand, define or problematize, and respond to questions under discussion and which you choose to pursue in your papers. Each paper, therefore, is expected to be more than a presentation of information, a plot summary, a paraphrase, or a character sketch: it is the working out of some idea.