Far from being writers—founders of their own place, heirs of the peasants of earlier ages now working on the soil of language, diggers of wells and builders of houses—readers are travelers; they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write, despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it themselves. ― Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
For me this space of radical openness is a margin — a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a ‘safe’ place. One is always at risk. One needs a community of resistance. — bell hooks, “Choosing the Margin as a Space for Radical Openness”
Week 1 Introductions
Thursday, 9/7
- Gloria Anzaldua: “To live in the Borderlands means you ”
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Week 2 Borderlands
Tuesday, 9/12
- Gloria Anzaldua: Borderlands/La Frontera (Chapters 1-7)
- DUE: 1) Reading Response—Select 1 line in Borderlands that you consider to be essential to Anzaldua’s work and discuss why you were drawn to it and how it functions within the text as a whole. The line you select might illuminate an image, metaphor, figure, word, or idea you find interesting; you must persuasively explore its meaningfulness in ways that are not obvious, general, or summarizing. Consider also how Anzaluda’s text enacts, embodies, or resists the very concept of the border that is being explored, and thus how she challenges your position as a reader. 2) Personal Border Narrative: Revise the border stories you drafted and shared during our 1st class session and post to the blog; this may entail rewriting, expanding, or other modifications to get to the core of your story.
Thursday, 9/14
- Gloria Anzaldua: Borderlands/La Frontera
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Week 3 Poetics of the Border
Tuesday, 9/19 — Poetry
- Gary Soto: “Mexicans Begin Jogging“
- Javier Zamora: “Dancing in Buses”
- Eduoardo C. Corral: “In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes”
- Lorna Dee Cervantes: “Freeway 280”
- Ada Limon: “The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversations to be Bilingual”
- Alexandra Lytton Regalado: “La Mano“
- Martin Espada: “Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100”
- DUE: Reading Response—Identify the most important word in 1 poem (and why), then research its etymology to discover the historical and social meaning of this word as it has evolved over time. Does the etymological value of this word alter how you read its function in the poem? How does a deeper understanding of this word enable you to revisit the meaning of the poem? Discuss how the poem is opened up for you in new ways through your research. (1 paragraph max)
Thursday, 9/21 — continued
- DUE: Watch Cary Joji Fukunaga: Sin Nombre. Film Response—Discuss 1 cinematic technique (framing, angle, camera movement of a shot) in 1 specific scene which Fukunaga develops as a way of visually representing the border-crossing narrative, and discuss its meaning to the film as a whole.
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Week 4 Transnational Voices
Tuesday, 9/26 — Poetry
- Li Young Lee: “Persimmons” / “Immigrant Blues”
- Sun Yung Shin: “Immigrant Song”
- Marilyn Chin: “Turtle Soup”
- Franny Choi: “Choi Jeong Min”
- Natalie Diaz: “Manhattan is a Lenape Word”
- Naomi Shihab Nye: “Jerusalem” / “Blood” / “Darling” / “Arabic”
- Noor Hindi: “Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying”
- Kaveh Akbar: “Reading Farrokhzad in a Pandemic” / “Do You Speak Persian?”
- Threa Almontaser: “Heritage Emissary”
- Hala Alyan: “Oklahoma” / “Topography”
- DUE: Reading Response—1) Write a letter to an assigned peer sharing brief reflections on any 1 poem of your choice from this week’s readings (email/cc me); 2) Formulate one possible scholarly question you would pursue if you were writing an essay on this poem (Write it down and bring to class)
Thursday, 9/28 — continued
- DUE: Intro to Essay 1
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Week 5 Geographies of Self / Transgressive Identities
Tuesday, 10/3 — Poetry
- Adrienne Rich: What Kinds of Times Are These
- Danez Smith: The 17 Year-Old & the Gay Bar
- Ocean Vuong: Self-Portrait as Exit Wounds
- Chen Chen: Self Portrait as So Much Potential
- Max Ritvko: Poem to My Litter
- Mark Doty: Charlie Howard’s Descent
- Hieu Minh Nguyen: Staying Quiet
- Jenny Zhang: My baby first birthday
- Cameron Awkward-Rich: Meditations in an Emergency / The Little Girl…
- Oliver Baez Bendorf: Outing, Iowa
- DUE: 1) Reply to last week’s peer email in your response to a new poem due this week as a way to extend and continue your conversation (cc me) ; 2) Creative Reading Exercise: Write a poem that borrows from, imitates, or emulates one of the poems this week, thematically and/or stylistically. For example: a poem that begins “What Kinds of Times Are These” or a poem entitled “Self Portrait.”
*Class will be held in The Botanic Garden of Smith College
Thursday, 10/5 — continued
*Class will be held in The Botanic Garden of Smith College
*DUE Friday, 10/6: ESSAY 1, DRAFT 1 (copies for me & your partner via email) — Your task in this assignment is to construct a unique argument about 1 poem through close analysis of carefully selected lines, and to show how your insight is significant in revealing something we may not have previously understood about the poem. *Length: 4-5 pages. Please review guidelines for essays under FYS tab (formatting and writer’s memo).
NOTE: Please include in your email subject: the assignment name (ie. Essay 1, Draft 1). Please attach your file as a google doc or .docx (no pdfs accepted), with the document file name as your first & last name and assignment name (ie. Stacie Cassarino, Essay 1, Draft 1).
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Week 6 Racial Borders and Black Bodies
Tuesday, 10/10 — FALL BREAK
Thursday, 10/12 — Poetry
- Claude McKay: “America”
- Audre Lorde: “The Brown Menace, or Poem to the Survival of Roaches”
- gwendolyn brooks: “a song in the front yard”
- Danez Smith: “dear white america” / “alternate names for black boys”
- Jericho Brown: “Bullet Points”
- Mark Doty: “In Two Seconds”
- Hanif Abdurraquib: “How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This”
- Reginald Dwayne Betts: “When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving”
- Morgan Parker: “If You Are Over Staying Woke”
- Saddiq Dzukogi: “Ring”
- DUE: 1) Creative Reading Exercise— Write a poem that borrows from, imitates, or emulates one of the poems this week, thematically and/or stylistically. For example, your own version of a prose poem letter to white america (Smith) or a list poem of alternate names for ____fill in the blank_____ (Smith), or an instruction poem (Parker), etc. 2) Peer Review Form : Write a letter to your partner articulate, in your own words: 1. what the story is doing—main ideas; 2. the strengths of the story; 3. two or more elements on which the writer should focus in revisions, along with specific examples—specific spots in the draft—that help to explain why these elements need attention. 4. Any other comments or suggestions you think might assist the writer. Remember, the recipient of the letter can only benefit from honest criticism, as well as encouragement. You do not need to fill out this form (although you may do so to provide additional helpful detail for the writer), but you should address as many of those elements in your thorough, close-reading of your peer’s story. This is also an exercise in letter-writing, a beautiful, lost form that can collapse distances, especially now.
*Conferences
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Week 7 Visual Forms and Intertextuality
Tuesday, 10/17
- Alison Bechdel: Fun Home
- DUE: 1) Reading Response—Read Fun Home. Discuss the significance of 1 specific scene as a way of thinking about the whole text. (post) / 2) Visual Response—Draw 1 panel (w/accompanying text) that captures an important moment in your life story so far. (bring to class)
Thursday, 10/19
- Alison Bechdel: Fun Home
*DUE: ESSAY 1, REVISION
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Week 8 Human-Animal Metamorphoses
Tuesday, 10/24
- Justin Torres: We the Animals
- DUE: Reading Response— Write a 1-page story emulating Torres’ style (diction, prosody, sentence structure, tone, themes, voice, point-of-view, etc.); let the experience of Torres’ story prompt a story from your life, but since you are reading fiction (not nonfiction), take freedoms with fictionalizing the personal. I am especially looking to see how your critical investment in the novella is conveyed through your creative piece.
Thursday, 10/26
- Justin Torres: We the Animals
- [Optional: Werner Herzog: Grizzly Man OR Bertrand Mandico: The Wild Boys]
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Week 9
Tuesday, 10/31
- Justin Torres: We the Animals
Thursday, 11/2 — NO CLASSES
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Week 10 Queer Expatriation
Tuesday, 11/7
- James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
- DUE: What is the most important word in the novel, and why? / What is the most important passage in the novel, and why?
Thursday, 11/9
- James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
- DUE: Essay 2, scholarly question (optional Intro)
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Week 11
Tuesday, 11/14
- James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
- DUE: ESSAY 2, DRAFT 1
Thursday, 11/16
- James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
- Due: Watch John Schlesinger: Midnight Cowboy
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Week 12 Black Art, Myths of Citizenship, Genre-Crossing
Tuesday, 11/21
- Claudia Rankine: Citizen
- Due: Reading Response
Thursday, 11/23 — THANKSGIVING
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Week 13
Tuesday, 11/28
- Claudia Rankine: Citizen
*Class will be held in Smith College Special Collections, Neilson Library
Thursday, 11/30
- Claudia Rankine: Citizen
*DUE: ESSAY 2, REVISION — by Monday 12/4 via email — NOTE: Please include in your email subject: the assignment name (ie. Essay 2, Revision). Please attach your file as a google doc or .docx (no pdfs accepted), with the document file name as your first & last name and assignment name (ie. Stacie Cassarino, Essay 2, Revision).
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Week 14 Expanding the Dialogue
Tuesday, 12/5
- Claudia Rankine: Citizen
- DUE: Watch Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing
- DUE: Essay 3, Scholarly Question
- [Optional: Amiri Baraka: “Black Art”; Tony Hoagland: “The Change”/Rankine’s Response/Hoagland’s Letter ; Interviews w/Rankine: this and “I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I asked.” ]
*Class will be held in the SMITH COLLEGE MUSUEM OF ART
Thursday, 12/7
- Claudia Rankine: Citizen
- *Workshop Scholarly Questions etc.
DUE: Bibliographies by Sunday 12/10 (via email)
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Week 15 Conclusions
Tuesday, 12/12
- Final Creative Project Presentations
- Due: Watch Raoul Peck/James Baldwin: I Am Not Your Negro
Thursday, 12/14
- Final Creative Project Presentations
*DUE: ESSAY 3 — DUE by Sunday, 12/17 Midnight
*FINAL SELF-REFLECTION & Grade Proposal — DUE by Monday, 12/18 Noon
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Related Texts:
- Virgina Woolf: Orlando (Paul B. Preciado: Orlando, My Political Biography; Sally Potter: Orlando; Hannah Bonner: Becoming Others: Enacting the Transness of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando )
- Toni Morrison: Sula
- Clarice Lispector: The Hour of the Star
- Jean Toomer: Cane