ALASSANE OUATTARA UNIVERSITY

UFR –CMS.

English Department.

SYLLABUS

ACADEMIC YEAR 2021 / 2022

1-Course

Course title: American Novel.

Academic year: 2019-2020
Level: Third year (L3)
Course duration: ….…H

2- Teacher

Name: COULIBALY Daouda.

Rank: Professor
Email: ndbaly@hotmail.com.
Office:11B
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday (2to5pm) .

3-Course Plan
1. First person Narrative (slave narrative and neo-slave narratives)
2. Imitating the tradition
3. Double Oppression: production and reproduction

4- Course description
This class will look at the development of slave narrative from its 19th century form into neo-slave
narrative (20th century). We will analyze the historical context of the development of white on
Black, Black on Black, men on women tension/relationship in the USA.
More specifically, we will read Alice Walker’s The Color Purple as a sample text that sits across the
different traditions of African American autobiographical texts. We will carefully look at the ways in
which young women grow up and face all kinds of challenges in this environment marked by race,
social class, and gender.
5- Course objectives (general objective, specific objectives)
Main objective of this class is to discuss race, class and gender issues faced by African American
men and women.
6- Prerequisite: None

7- Methodology (lecture, seminar, tutorial…)

This class is a lecture/tutorial mode. Students will have some reading to do and we will discuss
them together in class.
8- Further readings
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1927
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969
Paule Marshall, Praisesong for the Widow, 1983

9-Course schedule

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Day1 : Reading Alice Walker, 1 to 126
M. J Cutter, “Philomena Speaks: Alice Walker’s Revisioning of Rape Achetypes in The Color
Purple”Melus 25(3/4), 2000: (161-180).
KK Cheng, “Don’t Tell: Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior”
Day 2: Reading Alice Walker, 127 to 178
T. Harris, “On The Color Purple, stereotypes, and silence”, Black American Literature Forum,

Day 3: Reading Alice Walker, 179-294

L. Berlant, “Race, gender and Nation in The Color Purple”

10-Bibliography

L. Berlant, “Race, gender and Nation in The Color Purple”Critical Inquiry 14(4), (1988):831-859
KK Cheng, “Don’t Tell: Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior”, MLA
(1988):162-174
M. J Cutter, “Philomena Speaks: Alice Walker’s Revisioning of Rape Achetypes in The Color
Purple”Melus 25 (3/4), (2000): 161-180.
T. Harris, “On The Color Purple, Stereotypes, and Silence”, Black American Literature Forum,vol.18,
number4,(1984): 155-161

Evaluation: Final exam is a personal term paper of 7 to 10 pages with a bibliography.

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