LFU:online

The aim of this course is for students to gain a grounding in major currents of African American thought from the nineteenth-century to the present, and an understanding of the changing ways in which Blackness has been theorized and constructed in America over that period, via the focalizing lens of one of the most significant works of twentieth-century American fiction: Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man. Students will accordingly develop their skills in close-reading works of fiction, criticism, history, and theory, as well as their broader contextual awareness and understanding of the complex history of race and racism in an American context.

Across the semester, we will concentrate on reading only one work of literature—slowly, carefully, in detail and depth. That work is Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, one of the most significant novels in the history of African American literature, and indeed American literature as a whole. We will travel through this complex and fascinating text at a rate of approximately two chapters per week, enabling lots of discussion and intricate close-reading of Ellison’s language, style, method, and politics.

Invisible Man, however, represents only one strand of this course’s content. Ellison’s novel is about what it means to be Black in the United States—culturally, politically, economically, psychologically. It’s about different visions of what Blackness can be in American life and how those visions have changed over time: it comments on earlier directions in Black thought while presciently anticipating later ones. Accordingly, we will use Invisible Man as a springboard for exploring the intellectual contexts in which the novel is located. This means that each week, alongside a section of Invisible Man, we will also be discussing a key (short) work of Black intellectual history, from nineteenth-century voices like Booker T. Washington and Maria W. Stewart to contemporary figures like Ta-Nehisi Coates and bell hooks. Reading their works will allow us to consider Invisible Man not in isolation but rather as part of a much wider American discourse about the struggle for Black liberty, dignity, and humanity.

Class discussion, reading and writing assignments.

• Ongoing assessment of seminar discussion participation (20%) 
• Two critical commentaries: one on a chapter of Invisible Man (40%), one on a work of Black intellectual history (40%)

A list of works to be read will be distributed before the start of the semester and made available via OLAT. The only text required for student purchase will be a copy of Ellison’s Invisible Man.

Prerequisite for the Bachelor Program (612): positive completion of compulsory module 10, for BA Lehramt (457): positive completion of compulsory module 13