For African Americans, literature is an integral part of understanding their racial, social and political experience in the United States. Literature is also a central part of the African American intellectual tradition. Often, racial prejudice prohibited black citizens from actively including their voices in the public forum, and literary forms provided a means of engaging the public with the realities of black life in the nation. Consequently, literature is an important part of the lived African American experience. Interrogating black literature entails placing it within its historical period, and measuring its themes and messages by other literary themes. This is where you come in.
For your final assignment you are going to write a book review that critically analyzes an influential African American novel applying AT LEAST ONE theory of literary criticisms we will explore in our last unit. This approach to reviewing literature is a part of a broader practice of analysis called literary historicism, which works to connect literature to its historical period and the cultural and political movements shaping that specific era. In this way, literary historicism requires a deep reading of texts.
As you write this essay, you will apply literary historicism to your chosen novel by considering the relationship between the themes, characters, dialogue and main ideas and the time in which the book was written. Additionally, you will complicate traditional readings of the book by thinking about how black literary theory can be applied to its narrative. Keep in mind that a book review is meant to give just enough summary, analysis, and critique to encourage your reader to pick up the book on his/her own, so you do not need to retell every detail from its pages. The average book review is 3-4 pages long, but because you are placing a book within its historical context and utilizing a literary criticism, you will need at least 1-2 pages extra to fully develop your original analysis. Use the guide below to help you organize your paper.
Novel List
Jean Toomer Cane (1923)
Wallace Thurman The Blacker the Berry (1929) Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God(1937)
Richard Wright Native Son (1940)
Ralph Ellison The Invisible Man (1952)
Paule Marshall Brown Girl Brownstones (1959) Chinua Achebe Arrow of God (1964)
John A. Williams The Man Who Cried I Am (1967) Paule Marshal The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969)
Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye (1970)
James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) Gale Jones Corregidora (1975)
Ntozake Shang For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Not Enough (1975)
Earnest Gaines A Gathering of Old Men (1983) Ernest Gaines A Lesson Before Dying (1993) Etwidge Danticat Breadth, Eyes, Memory (1994) Juno Diaz The Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) Zadie Smith Swing Time (2016)
Jesmyn Ward Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017)
Every book review has a basic format. Please follow the steps below to guide you in the process of writing your essay.
a) Book title, author, number of pages, place of publication, Publication Company and cost.
Your title should follow the format provided below.
Ex: BELOVED By Toni Morrison. 275 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
b) Begin your review with a very concise summary. This should be no longer than one page. Discuss only
the most important aspects of the narrative and tie them together to convey a sense of what the book is about and how it progresses.
Introduction to African American and African Studies II (Final Exam) Due Date: Dec. 17 @ 11:59 pm
c) You should then move into historical context. Place your book in context, and take at least one page to do so, keeping in mind that you should draw on this context throughout your analysis.
Here is where you talk about what was happening in the United States when the book was being
written and when it was published – paying particular attention to African American life.
d) After establishing your historical context, you should begin analyzing your book. Here you want to focus specifically on the major themes, imagery, and ideas that emerge from the book you have chosen. This should be no shorter than two or three pages.
Dig deep here. Think about the things your author is detailing most often throughout the text. What
stands out? What is the writer doing with this story and why? Why are these specific ideas/images/themes important to the progression of the story? What message(s) is the author trying to convey through the story/characters/setting? Remember that this is the foundation for building your critique. In short, think carefully about the overall tone of the book so that you can apply a theory that works best for the novel you have selected.
Keep this section concise – 1-2 paragraphs should suffice to offer a powerful conclusion. DO NOT
RESTATE ALL THAT YOU WROTE BEFORE THE CONCLUSION. Instead, focus on discussing the things that make this book helpful and useful for understanding the African American experience.
After fulfilling each of these requirements, your five pages will be complete. Please remember that your review must be 1500-2000 words (approximately 5-7 pages), typed in Times New Roman font and double spaced. Please submit your paper by 11:59 pm on December 17th. Since the semester will be over at this point, I cannot accept late papers. Begin working on this as early as possible and talk with me about any issues you are having as you move along.