Time Schedule:
Sonnet H. Retman
AFRAM 498
Seattle Campus
Topics in which students and faculty have developed an interest as a result of work done in other classes or as a result of the need to investigate in greater depth Afro-American Studies issues. Topics vary.
Class description
AFRAM 498: Exhibiting Culture, Performing Race
“Visual display is the other side of spectacle, the site of production rather than consumption or reception, the designer rather than the viewer, the agent rather than the patient . . . . It is through modes of display that regimes of all sorts reveal the truths they mean to conceal. Above all, it is necessary to place the myriad contemporary forms of display in historical context . . . . Each historic period has its own rhetorical mode of display, because each has different truths to conceal.” (9-10) Peter Wollen, “Introduction” Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances
This class will focus on representations of display, spectacle and performance in order to trace the racial, sexual and class politics that structure American culture in the twentieth century. We’ll explore texts that deploy various modes of spectacle, display and performance—such as the collection, the archive, the exhibition, and the minstrel and variety show—as central narrative devices. Heeding Wollen’s directive, we will reflect on the ideological functions of display, performance and spectacle within particular historical and political contexts.
Throughout the quarter, we will pursue a number of questions: is spectacle primarily an effect and display and performance a practice? Which historical narratives are told and which are displaced within collections, exhibitions, archives and theatrical productions? How do books sometimes function as a form of collection or archive? Conversely, how does collecting function as a narrative strategy? Given the fact that many of the books we will read this quarter are satires, we will consider the relationship between satire, spectacle and performance. How do the modes of spectacle and performance and the genre of satire capitalize on excess and concealment? Taking race, gender, sexuality and class into account in our readings, who carries the burden of embodiment in the public sphere? If some people are designated as hyper-visible, who remains neutral, unseen? How do modes of display, performance and spectacle function in relation to the nation and notions of proper citizenship? Course texts might include Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Langston Hughes’s The Ways of White Folks, selections from Jean Toomer’s Cane, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Toni Cade Bambara’s Those Bones Are Not My Child, “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Venus,” Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled,” Kara Walker’s silhouettes, and Stew’s musical (now Spike Lee film) “Passing Strange.”
Student learning goals
Improve your ability to read, analyze, and discuss literary and cultural texts
Further develop your writing skills, especially your ability to state your ideas in a succinct, coherent manner and support them with close textual readings
Understand the broader social, historical and cultural contexts in which black literary and cultural production have evolved
Assess the impact of African American cultural production on artistic and intellectual movements of the past and the present
Enhance your sense of the multiple ways in which art can work as a tool for social change
General method of instruction
This class requires active engagement with the texts and with each other: come to class prepared to talk about the day's readings. Works of fiction don't always reveal their meanings instantly to a single reader. Meanings usually emerge through a pooling of responses and a sharing of ideas. In the arena of culture, meaning is dialectical--we work it out together by testing our responses with one another. You will be held accountable for being prepared and ready to participate. On the second day we discuss each text, you will hand in a 250 word response to a selected work explaining the phrase, image or section that you find to be the most important in the entire work. We may post these responses if we choose to move in that direction. (These responses cannot be made up under any circumstances. At the end of the quarter, I will drop your lowest graded response). You will also work with one other student on a 10 minute group presentation. There will be one mid-term paper and one final paper. You will receive handouts outlining the expectations for the papers.
A note about reading: I recommend that you not only take notes during class meetings but that you also mark interesting passages as you read. This will help you participate in class and ease into your writing. Over the quarter, you may be asked to complete occasional in-class writing assignments, which you should be ready to share with others in class. I encourage you to meet with me during office hours to discuss the readings and assignments.
Recommended preparation
Background in African American literature (AFRAM 214/ 258; AFRAM 358); race, gender and media studies (AES 489).
Class assignments and grading
Attendance and informed class participation 10% Weekly response portfolio 20% Group Presentation 10% Mid-term Paper 30% Final Paper 30%
