ENG 447G (4305-WI24) - Afri Amer Female Unknowability

Course Image: African-American woman png sticker, portrait illustration on transparent background. Public domain. 

Course Introduction: 

The Black Arts Movement (1965-1975) in the United States, hailed as a second artistic renaissance, reflected a Black consciousness that had as a goal Black liberation. Despite its liberatory goals, and wide female participation, the movement has been recognized as one that engendered misogyny (misogynoir), homophobia and anti-Semitism. This misogyny was further compounded by U.S. stereotypes of Black women. Both these contexts help create Black women’s unknowability or the articulation of Black women’s identity as one related to a negative socio-epistemic space. While the women of the Black Arts Movement decried phallocentric and heterosexist portrayals of women, the period following the Black Arts Movement contains work by women attempting to articulate Black women’s identities. This course will focus on some of that literary production as an attempt to crack Black women’s unknowability. 

Course Objectives

  • Students will be able to define various epistemologies of ignorance.
  • Students will be able to identify predominant stereotypes about Black women in the U.S.
  • Students will learn what socio-political elements construct Black women’s unknowability and negative socio-epistemic space
  • Students will identify some of the ways Black women writers attempt to articulate Black women’s identities.
  • Students will be able to identify various constructions of Black women’s identities.
  • Students will be able to identify an external, contemporary example of Black women’s unknowability or Black women’s negative socio-epistemic space.    

Required Texts:

  • The Color Purple, Alice Walker. Published: 1970.
  • Sula, Toni Morrison. Published: 1973.
  • The Women of Brewster Place, Gloria Naylor. Published: 1982.
  • Bloodchild and Other Stories, Octavia Butler. Published: 1996 (please note that individual stories were published as early as 1971).
  • Other materials posted on Moodle (M).