LITR 5731 Multicultural Literature: Tragedy & Africa
University of Houston-Clear Lake, fall 2011
Class Meeting:
Tuesdays 2:45-5:15, Ramsey 1
Instructor:
Craig White
Office hours: before & after class; at break
Caveat: All items on this syllabus are subject to change with minimal notification.
Texts (in order of reading)
Aeschylus, The Oresteia (Agamemnon complete + selections from Libation Bearers & Eumenides) (458 BC) Handouts
Athol Fugard, “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys (1982)
Sophocles, Oedipus the King (429 BC) Handout
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1957)
Sophocles, Antigone (c. 442 BC) Handout
Wole Soyinka, Death & the King’s Horseman (1975)
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus (406, 401 BC) (Handout)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat (1967)
Assignments and grades
Grades and Assignments: Percentages are only approximate, indicating relative weight in considering final grades, which are not mathematically computed but judged subjectively by comparing quality of a student's thought and writing with that of classmates and wider academic standards.
·
Take-home
midterm exam (40%)
·
Take-home final exam (50%)
· class participation (10%) (Attendance, preparation, and quality of class participation may influence grades beyond percentages indicated.)
Course Premises, Objectives, &
Terms:
Purpose of course:
To reconcile dominant culture claims concerning great literature with
multicultural differences; to extend or limit visions of humanity and genre
across cultures.
Premises of course:
1. Tragedy is widely if implicitly regarded as the greatest literary genre of Western Civilization or World Literature.
2. Western Civilization usually excludes Africa (exceptions:
European colonialism of
3. 20th-century Postcolonial African literature includes texts that may be tragedies
4. What questions and possibilities do these premises raise?
- Universal answer: All people are basically the same, so tragedy is a universal genre. (immediately gratifying but limiting to assumptions)
- Historical answer: Tragedy in Western Civilization accompanies expansive periods of modern empire; African tragedy rises in response to contact with Western Civilization and modernity (less instantly gratifying but more intellectually productive)
Forbidden answer: “People like tragedy because they like seeing other people worse off than they are.” (Students sometimes try this explanation, never offering evidence beyond cynicism. Mistake confuses tragedy with spectacle.)
Also be careful with common, popular, or sentimental uses of “tragedy,” as in "What a tragedy!" Non-academic speech applies the term to unfortunate events or untimely end to life-stories, especially when the event is undeserved. Literary Tragedy is more complicated and less sentimental—no one escapes blame—but like the sentimental usage it addresses questions of justice and morality.
Literary
Objective 1: Elements of Tragedy as greatest genre
1a. Tragedy is the greatest narrative genre of western civilization or world literature. (Narrative genre = “contract with the audience” for how a story begins, proceeds, and ends. Other main references: romance, comedy)
- How do we define greatness?
1b. Special interests: Narrative as ritual
- Greek Tragedy and African culture as unified artistic experience (poetry, dance, song)
- Ritual as dance, procession; sacrifice; cf. liturgy, cult, costumes, masks / masques; cf. communion, baptism, funeral;
- Ritual as reconciliation (humanity and gods)
1c. Formal genre: drama and novel
- dramatic art as "imitation," mimesis, or dialogue
- fictional art as narrative + dialogue
Essential literary terms: genre, narrative (story), tragedy, comedy, romance, character, irony, spectacle, “blood” as family and violence, masks / masques; tragic flaw (hubris, hamartia), figure of speech; riddle; personal as political.
Additional literary terms:
Historical Objective 2: Western Civilization & Postcolonial
2a. If
classical
2b. If
Western Civilization is modern and
-
Other non-western cultures [e.g.,
- All cultures make some balance b/w stability & change, past and future
2c. How does African literature make us see Western culture differently?
2d. What advantages to learning history through representational arts like drama and fiction?
2e.
Tragedy rises
not
when a nation or people are depressed but when they are confident and
enterprising. In contrast, when anxiety and uncertainty unsettle a people or
nation, they turn to popular escapist genres like comedy and romance.
Essential historical terms: Western Civilization, empire, colonialism, nation or nationalism, postcolonialism, culture, modernity and tradition; African diaspora, the “Black Atlantic” created by New World Slavery (e.g. Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, plus or minus African America USA); apartheid, Uhuru; Indian diaspora; capitalism as scarcity, extraction/exploitation, hoarding, market, re-investment, creative destruction, modernization.
Additional historical terms:
Moral
Obj. 3: Are Tragedy & Multicultural Literature Good 4U?
3a. Literature often functions as a field of “secular religion” in which ethical questions are demonstrated and discussed; e.g., Why did this character act as s/he did? Did they make the right choice?
3b. Faith-based, mystical, or other-worldly religions may appear but usually don’t have final authority. Nothing does! We keep talking our world into being.
3c. All people hunger for grand moral narratives in which characters like us appear naturally virtuous, heroic, and triumphant, while others (i.e., “them”) are willfully malicious, hypocritical, and doomed to defeat.
- Popular literature laughs off good characters’ vice and error (comedy), or shows good & evil as polar extremes, good guys vs. bad guys, white hats and black hats (romance)—such simple distinctions have wide appeal.
- Tragedy as mental and emotional exercise “beyond good and evil” (Nietzsche), or thinking rationally and analytically instead of passionately, deliberately instead of impulsively.
3d. Aesthetic & ethical values and terms for tragedy: (Aesthetics = study of beauty or pleasure; fulfillment of formal expectations; cf. sublime)
- How do audiences enjoy tragedy, and why might tragedy do us good?
- Can taste be educated? People naturally like romance, adventure, spectacle, and happy or triumphant endings, but can we learn to appreciate tragedy’s subtler, less natural, tougher pleasures?
- Contrast push-button emotions of sentimentality, escapism, triumph.
- If the purpose of literature is entertainment plus education, do we learn more from Tragedy?
- To balance art's competing or complementary values of "liking" and "learning."
- To assert the purpose of tragic art for a “feel-good” society.
- Is it possible to defend a genre for being less popular? Can being less popular be a positive quality? On what grounds can such an anti-democratic or elitist value be defended?
Tragedy as family
values: From the start
Aristotle associates Tragedy with stories of families.
“Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
(Tolstoy, Anna Karenina)
Contrast morality &
moralism
-
morality
= honest struggle to
resolve right and right (e.g., abortion, capital punishment; just wars)
-
moralism
= absolute right and wrong; whoever’s moralizing is right, and whoever
disagrees is automatically wrong.
Essential moral terms: religion, humanism, values, honor; humanity and divinity; free will and determinism; master-servant; cosmic network; monotheism and polytheism; sentimentality; shame / honor societies vs. guilt / pride societies.
Additional moral terms:
Instructional Objective 4: Serious Talk for Learning & Pleasure
4a. Literary seminar as exercise in critical thinking and civil discourse: identifying, analyzing, and solving problems as progress, more or less.
4b. To experiment with structuring multicultural literature around genre (as opposed to or in partnership with structuring multicultural literature around political and ethical issues)
4c. Problem teaching drama: it’s not made for reading but for producing, directing, and acting. In some classrooms students read or act lines. My experiments haven’t been rewarding, but if students want to propose and organize in-class readings, I’ll play along.
4d. Instructor, esp. first time teaching course, must remain open to learning while students must forgive defensiveness or awkwardness. (Instructor is rarely the smartest person in the room but usually knows more on the subject than anyone else, + chooses subjects, + sometimes years of practice. This course is the first time around . . . .)
Class participation as civil discourse: Class participation is listed as counting 10%, but usually it doesn’t affect course final grades significantly. A student’s participation grade usually resembles his writing grades. However, sometimes one or two students help the class discussion (not only by talking but by listening to others) and get borderline help with their grade—for instance, if they’re hovering between a B+ and an A-, good participation may push to the better grade. More often, though, poor participation lowers a grade. Poor participation can take many forms:
· Resentful silence and lack of attention.
· Inappropriate remarks, especially as repeated.
· Talking at such length that other students “check out”—especially when relevance of monologue to topic is questionable.
Your course reading is tested partly by participation in class discussions led by instructor. If you do not participate in or follow these discussions, the instructor assumes you aren’t prepared or don’t care, for which your overall grade suffers.
Expectations:
· Each student should participate in discussion occasionally by specifically referring to contents or pages of reading assignment.
· “Tracking” provides evidence of reading. Bored or clueless students often they can’t follow discussion b/c they haven’t read.
· Participation is judged less on quantity than on appropriateness to the topic under discussion and the question or point pursued.
· When you are called on to speak, avoid long stories with lots of background. The class should help control.
· Avoid backing up to previous points.
· Make one point per turn. Remarks on several topics confuse response. Choose your most important point at the given moment.
· If I don’t follow up your comments, this isn’t necessarily a negative reaction. Straining to respond to every comment confuses students if my point is important or just polite. A student’s comment “speaks for itself” unless I have something sharp or essential to add.
· Students are encouraged to respond to each other, but instructor may intervene to stay on point.
Instructor’s style: Ideally a Humanities instructor leads a Socratic dialogue, posing questions to start discussion, then following answers with further questions.
- I work to do this right but am not especially clever. Especially when students ask a question or seek information, I answer declaratively rather than interrogatively. But I try to limit my speech to one sentence per turn.
- If I don’t always reply to student comments, don’t take this personally.
- Sometimes I simply can’t think of anything sharp or helpful to say, and hope silence is better than talking till I can think of something.
- Instead, I’ll look around to see if anyone else wants to follow up, but just as often someone will raise their hand for another subject.
- Anyway, welcome to try again in discussion or on your exams.
General Method of Evaluation and Warning about Standards: Only letter grades are given, and pluses and minuses may appear on component and final grades. As in most literature and humanities courses, quality of writing on assignments is the most decisive factor in grading. In reading and grading your writing, I cannot separate your ideas from their expression. The quality of your thought is apparent only in the quality of the writing. Grades and criticisms usually concern your organization and style as much as content. This can be intellectually liberating for you, since I read your writing less for "the right answer" than for intelligent deliberation. Instruction on transitions and continuity will be offered.
COURSE POLICIES
Attendance policy: You are expected to attend every scheduled class meeting, but previous courses at Ramsey have shown me how incarceration can disrupt students’ schedules without warning. If you want to stay in the course, please stay in touch as well as possible and we’ll work things out as well as possible.
Academic Honesty Policy: Please refer to the UHCL catalog for the Academic Honesty Policy. Plagiarism—that is, using research without citations or copying someone else’s work as your own—will result in a grade penalty or failure of the course. The UHCL catalogue provides further details regarding expectations and potential penalties.
Incompletes: A grade of "I" is given only in cases of documented emergency late in the semester. An Incomplete Grade Contract must be completed.
Late submissions: Any student who submits late materials is subject to lower grades, either in individual grades or course grades.
LITR 5731 Tragedy & Africa 2011 Schedule of readings:
23 August: course introduction (see p. 10)
* * * * * * * * * *
30 August: [class canceled for instructor-TDC orientation]
* * * * * * * * * *
6 September:
Aeschylus, The Oresteia (Agamemnon)
(Handouts)
* * * * * * * * * *
13 September:
Aeschylus, The Oresteia (Agamemnon
complete + selections from Libation
Bearers & Eumenides)
(Handouts)
Also read:
“
Also bring
Athol Fugard,
“Master
Harold” . . . and the Boys
for preview
* * * * * * * * * *
20 September: Athol Fugard, “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys (1982)
Also bring
Sophocles, Oedipus
the King for
preview
* * * * * * * * * *
27 September: Sophocles, Oedipus the King
Also bring
Things Fall Apart
for preview
* * * * * * * * * *
4 October: 1st half of Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1957); wife-beating article
* * * * * * * * * *
11 October: second half of Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1957)
Preview midterm exam
* * * * * * * * * *
18 October:
Midterm exam—bring completed take-home to class for reading
and discussion
preview
Sophocles, Antigone
* * * * * * * * * *
Midterm assignment:
Referring to our course texts so far (Oresteia,
“Master Harold,”
Oedipus the King,
& Things Fall Apart), describe,
organize, and unify your learning experience with Tragedy and
- Refer briefly to other texts, courses, or experiences, or ideas of your own, but keep refocusing on our texts, objectives, handouts, and discussions—the common ground where the class meets.
- Cover as much course material as you can explain compellingly and readably (I’ll let you know if you don’t do enough), but you can’t cover everything and aren’t expected to. Much of your own contribution will be selecting, prioritizing, emphasizing, and connecting what matters to you and whatever set of identities you represent. Make it interesting!
- Minimal expectations: at least two direct references to objectives, two direct references to handouts, and two direct references to discussion or lecture, but most of you will make more—who’s counting? (You don’t need to quote directly or cite numbers in every case, but use terms or summarize ideas specifically enough that I catch the reference.)
- You may personalize your discussion and use the pronoun “I” (not required), but keep returning to shared material. You might organize by describing previous knowledge or experience of genre, then what learned.
Format, length, etc.: Equivalent of 6-10 double-spaced typewritten pages, about 1200-2000 words. (Much more or less better be worth the difference.)
- Handwriting acceptable.
- Write in ink.
- Line through errors & squeeze in changes—no problem even with typewritten pages—I’m used to following directions.
- Fronts and backs of pages OK.
- Number pages.
Midterm will become basis for final exam, which will summarize content of your midterm and extend or change themes for 2nd half of course.
- Midterm will be returned with note and grade either 25 Oct. or 1 Nov.
* * * * * * * * * *
25 October: Sophocles, Antigone
Also bring
Death & the King’s Horseman
for preview
* * * * * * * * * *
1 November: First half of Wole Soyinka, Death & the King’s Horseman (1975)
* * * * * * * * * *
8 November: complete Wole Soyinka, Death & the King’s Horseman (1975)
Also bring
Oedipus at Colonus
for preview
* * * * * * * * * *
15 November: Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus
Also bring
A Grain of Wheat
for preview
* * * * * * * * * *
22 November: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat (1967)
* * * * * * * * * *
29 November: complete Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat (1967)
Preview final exam
* * * * * * * * * *
6 December:
Final exam—bring completed take-home exam to class for
reading and discussion.
(If instructor is absent; arrangements
will be made for collecting exams.)
Final exam assignment:
Summarize, react to, and evaluate your learning experience
described in midterm, then extend or vary your themes in reference to texts
since midterm (Antigone,
Death & the King’s Horseman,
Oedipus at Colonus, &
A Grain of Wheat), handouts &
discussions across semester. Describe, organize, and unify your learning
experience with Tragedy and
- You may refer briefly to other texts or experiences, or ideas of your own or ideas you learned elsewhere, but keep refocusing on our texts, objectives, handouts, and discussions—the common ground on which we meet.
- You may also refer to texts up to the midterm, but concentrate on texts since midterm.
- You’re expected to cover as much course material as you can explain compellingly and readably, and I’ll let you know if you don’t, but you can’t cover everything and aren’t expected to. The greatest part of your own contribution will be selecting, organizing, prioritizing, emphasizing, and connecting what matters to you and whatever world or identity you represent.
- Minimal expectations: make at least two direct references to objectives, two direct references to handouts, and two direct references to discussion or lecture, but most of you will make more. (You don’t need to quote directly or cite numbers in every case, but use terms or summarize ideas specifically enough that I catch the reference.)
- You may also discuss instructor’s reaction to your midterm and improvements you’ve attempted for final.
- Not required, but you may personalize your discussion and use the pronoun “I.” But keep returning to shared material.
Format, length, etc.: same as midterm; see p. 8 above.
Final exam will be returned with note and grade via Bill Powers’s office 1-2 weeks after exam date.
* * * * * * * * * *
Default
discussion questions for every class:
1. How or why is a text classified as a Tragedy or not?
2. Do texts reflect universal or cultural values (i.e., Western Civilization or African? Modern or Traditional?)
3. What aspects of the text elude classification as Tragedy? What other terms or categories are applicable?
4. What is surprising about Tragedy? (Premise: as greatest genre, tragedy must evolve)
5. How does Tragedy constructively confuse questions of crime and justice?
6. How may Tragedy and Africa meet?