Learning objectives
The course, taught in English, aims at providing students with a general knowledge of African American literature, as well as its political, historical and cultural contexts. The focus will be cross-genres and the modes of representation of the African American identity, especially of black women. The notions the students will learn will allow them to contextualize literary figures and texts in relation to a complex series of historical and cultural events. During the course they will acquire methodologies for the analysis and interpretation of specific literary texts. Students will learn to
• know authors, works, movements and aesthetic ideas from the 1970s until nowadays, as well as the different historical, political, cultural and artistic phenomena referring to these centuries;
• understand and analyze complex literary texts both in terms of their formal characteristics and their thematic and ideological contents;
• make informed and motivated judgments about literary and cultural phenomena, based on a careful decoding of textual evidence;
• formulate, communicate and discuss contents, analyses and judgments by using the linguistic register appropriate to the specific topic, that is to say, appropriate to the lexicon of literary studies;
• formulate and communicate content and analysis - in English - using a linguistic register appropriate to the subject, coinciding with the B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference.
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
This course is meant to be an introduction to African American Literature, with a specific focus on the time period that goes from the 1970s to today. We will explore the social, cultural, and political contexts that have shaped the African American literary tradition through a selection of contemporary texts of different genres: novel, short story, nonfiction, memoir, poetry, and that defy easy categorization. Our goal over the semester will be to identify and discuss a number of key themes, literary tropes and critical approaches that are relevant for the understanding of contemporary African American storytelling.
Full programme
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Bibliography
Primary sources:
Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982 (any edition)
Toni Morrison, “Black Matters,” 1992 –available on Elly
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (2015) – a selection of texts is available on Elly
Claudia Rankine, Citizen, An American Lyric (2014) – a selection of poems is available on Elly
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, 2016 (any edition) – selected chapters
Secondary sources:
D. Quentin Miller, The Routledge Introduction to African American Literature, 2016
Teaching methods
The course consists of 15 classes taught in English on Microsoft Teams. Recordings will be uploaded on Elly.
Assessment methods and criteria
The assessment of knowledge and skills occurs by means of an oral examination. During the oral exam, the student is asked to answer questions in English relating to the contents of the course, individual readings and any further studies independently carried out.
The knowledge and skills to be assessed during the oral examination are:
• an oral proficiency at an advanced level (i.e. the successful acquisition of the appropriate register and the specific language of literary studies) and oral proficiency in English corresponding to B2 level;
• knowledge of texts, authors, and ideological contexts and formal issues of the literary periods in question;
• an appropriate level in the ability to expand autonomously on certain contents. The oral examination is designed to assess knowledge, the ability for independent and original reworking of such knowledge, as well as the ability to make connections, comparisons and contrasts.
A fail is determined by the lack, demonstrated by students during the oral examination, of understanding of the minimum and essential contents of the course, the inability to express themselves adequately on the subject in English at B2 level, the lack of autonomous preparation, and the inability to solve problems related to information retrieval and the decoding of texts. A pass (18-23/30) is awarded to those students who show that they have learned the minimum and essential contents of the course, that they have acquired an ability to discuss literary topics appropriately in English, with a sufficient competence in relation to the characteristics of the B2 level, that they have achieved a sufficient degree of self-preparation and a sufficient capacity of textual analysis. Middle-range scores (24-27/30) are assigned to the student who produces evidence of a more than sufficient level (24-25/30) or a good level (26-27/30) in the evaluation indicators listed above. Higher scores (from 28/30 to 30/30 cum laude) are awarded on the basis of the student’s demonstration of a very good or excellent level in the evaluation indicators listed above.
Other information
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