Teaching GuideTerm
Faculty of Philology
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Grao en Inglés: Estudos Lingüísticos e Literarios
 Subjects
  North American Literature through its Texts
   Sources of information
Basic Andrew, Foster and Trudier Harris (eds) (2001). Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford UP.
Graham, Maryemma (2004). The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel.. Cambridge UP
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1997). Norton Anthology of African American Literature.. Norton
Hill, Patricia Liggins (ed) (1998)). Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition.
Baker, Houston (1984). Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular theory. Chicago: Chicago UP.
Bell, Bernard (1987). The Afro-American Novel and its Tradition. Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press.
Christian, Barbara (1980). Black Women Novelists, 1892-1976. Westport (Connecticut) : Greenwood Press.
Carby, Hazel (1987). Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. New York: Oxford UP
hooks, bell (2010). Teaching critical thinking : practical wisdom. New York: Routledge
hooks, bell (2000). Feminist theory from margin to center.. Cambridge : Bell Hooks.
hooks, bell (2006). Outlaw culture : resisting representations /. New York: Routledge
Stepto, Robert (1991). From Behind the Veil: A Study of African American Narrative. Urbana: U of Illinois P.
Christian, Barbara (2007). New Black feminist criticism, 1985-2000 . Urbana : University of Illinois Press.
Beaulieu, Elizabeth Ann (1999). Black Women Writers and the American Neo-Slave Narrative . Westport: Greenwood P.
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (1985). Race, Writing, and Difference. Chicago : The U of Chicago P
(). African American Review.
McQueen, Steve (dir.) (2014). 12 Years a Slave. 20th Century Fox
(). .

Required readings:

Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" (1773) (poem)

Solomon Northup's Twelve Years A Slave (1853). [Excerpts dealing with Patsy]

Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) or Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, 1845.

Sojourner Truth's "Aren't I a Woman? (1851) [Recording] [Speech: pages 198-201]. Norton Anthology for African American Literature. (speech)

Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat" (1926). Short story. Norton Anthology for African American Literature. [pages 999-1008].

James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues." Norton Anthology for African American Literature. [1694-1717]

Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959). Play. Norton Anthology for African American Literature. [pages 1728-1779]

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970). Novel. [Only a couple of copies in Library. Copies from Reprografía/Moodle] or "Recitatif". Short Story.

Gloria Naylor's "The Two" [Chapter] from The Women of Brewster Place (1982). Novel. Norton Anthology for African Am. Literature. [2544-2577] 

Taiye Selasi's "The Sex Lives of African Girls" (2011). Short Story. (Reprografía/Moodle)

NOTE: This is a tentative list of required readings.
Complementary Denard, Carolyn C. (ed). (2008). Toni Morrison : conversations. Jackson: UP of Miss.,
Conner, Marc C. (2000). The aesthetics of Toni Morrison speaking the unspeakable. Jackson: UP of Miss.,
Amian, Katrin. (2008). Rethinking postmodernism(s) : Charles S. Peirce and the pragmatist negotiations of Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, and Jonathan Safran Foer . Amsterdam ; New York : Rodopi
King, Lovalerie (2008). The Cambridge introduction to Zora Neale Hursto. New York: Cambridge UP
Fraile, Ana (1996). Zora Neale Hurston y su aportación a la literatura afroamericana [Recurso electrónico]. Salamanca: Universidad P.
Frias, María (1998). "Marriage Doesn't Make Love": El discurso del matrimonio en la obra de Zora Neale Hurston. Alcalá: Universidad de Alcalá
Sapphire (2010). Push.
(2010). Precious. Madrid: Warner Bross
Gadsby, Meredith. (2006). Sucking salt : Caribbean women writers, migration, and surviva. Columbia : University of Missouri P.
Fleischner, Jennifer. (1996). Mastering slavery : memory, family, and identity in women's slave narratives. New York: New York UP
Eastwood, Clint (dir.) (2001). Bird. Madrid: Warner Bross
Coppola, Francis (dir.) (1984). The Cotton Club . [USA] : Zoetrope Studios
Naylor, Gloria (2004). Conversations with Gloria Naylor . Jackson : University Press of Mississippi
Sirk, Douglass (dir.) (2005). Imitation of life. Universal City, Calif. : Universal Studios Home Video.

This is just a selected bibliography which also includes visual material.


Student will be provided with an extended version of this list (specific authors, in particular), and more audio visual material will be incorporated.

Audio-visual material is fundamental to better understand the social reality of race and gender in mainstream US. That is the reason why students will be encouraged to watch the films (some remarkable films on amazing artists such as Bird, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles or Tina Turner), as well as the play version of The Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, or the film version of Richard Wright's Native Son where the writer plays the role of the protagonist. The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, or Beloved, based on Toni Morrison's novel of the same title are a must for the students of this subject.

Students are encouraged to bring to class any material they might find related to the African American community in the United States (a new concert or show; a new film; a new book; or any kind of news in the media).

Since there is a growing community of African origin in Galicia, I would encourage the students to pause for a minute and think about what is behind that anonymous face they meet in the streets (usually selling illegal articles, and who are penalized by the local police). The stories you are familiar with can be incorporated within the fictional stories we will be reading in class.
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