Stranger in the Village : Race, Nation, and Belonging in History and Film

Transcription

1 HIST 80 AFR 147A AMER 180 Summer 2018 Talloires, France Stranger in the Village : Race, Nation, and Belonging in History and Film Professors Kendra Field and Khary Jones Africana Studies / Dept. of History / Dept. of Drama & Dance Kendra.Field@Tufts.edu / Khary.Jones@Tufts.edu I am in exile and was; one can never be an expatriate, really. One cannot possibly leave where he came from. You always carry home with you. James Baldwin (1973) COURSE DESCRIPTION Through the lens of African American expatriates in France epitomized by James Baldwin s classic 1953 essay, Stranger in the Village this team-taught course explores the construction of racial and national categories and identities in the long twentieth century. Looking back from our present political moment, incorporating biography, memoir, literature, and film, we will explore the historical experiences, creative production, and identifications of African-descended writers, artists, and exiles in France. While our sustained focus will remain on the life and writings of James Baldwin in the U.S. and France, additional figures will range from W.E.B. Du Bois and Josephine Baker to Richard Wright and Anita Reynolds to Ta-Nehisi Coates. Ultimately, we return to our current moment, employing the past as the foundation for interrogating contemporary questions of race, nation, and belonging, including presentday experiences of travel, migration, and diaspora.

2 REQUIRED TEXTS 1. Course Packet 2. James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son (1955; reprint by Beacon Press, 1984) 3. Anita Reynolds, American Cocktail: A Colored Girl in the World (Harvard University Press, 2014) *The above titles are required and have been made available to purchase. Students may also locate these books through online booksellers. *Reading schedule subject to change. SUPPLEMENTAL TEXTS OF INTEREST Rashida K. Braggs, Jazz Diasporas: Race, Music, and Migration in Post-World War II Paris (University of California Press, 2016) Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Ninth Edition (Pearson, 2015) Darlene Clark Hine et al, eds., Black Europe and the African Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2009) Michel Fabre, From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, (University of Illinois Press, 1993) Fred Standley and Louis Pratt, Eds., Conversations with James Baldwin (University Press of Mississippi, 1989) COURSE FILMS Princesse Tam-Tam (Dir. Edmond T. Gréville, 1935) Paris Blues (Dir. Martin Ritt, 1961) Story of a Three Day Pass (Dir. Melvin Van Peebles, 1968) What Happened, Miss Simone? (Dir. Liz Garbus, 2015) I Am Not Your Negro (Dir. Raoul Peck, 2016) Divines (Dir. Houda Benyamina, 2016) *Selected Film Clips

3 COURSE REQUIREMENTS 1. Informed participation in discussion 15% 2. Class Presentations 10% 3. Weekly Reading Responses 25% 4. Midterm Essay 20% 5. Final Project 30% Informed participation in discussion: Our class is built around student participation, including active discussion and regular class presentations. Class meetings will be divided between lecture, discussion, film, and student presentations. Class meetings and material will be shared between Professor Field and Professor Jones. Please come to class prepared to speak about course materials. All students are expected to be respectful of one another and the instructors at all times. No phone or computer use in class, except with faculty consultation. It never works out. All students are expected to attend every class meeting, and to notify both professors in writing in advance of anticipated absences. Academic dishonesty or plagiarism will require disciplinary action. If you ever have questions about the above course requirements and expectations, or any aspects of the course, please do not hesitate to contact us. Class Presentations: Each week one or more students will prepare short class presentations of approximately 15 minutes in length. Presentations will be targeted inquiries into the work and experience of one of the artists/historical actors identified in the back of the syllabus. Among your goals should be to put your subject in conversation with our course readings and the larger ideas and themes of the course. Weekly Reading Responses: These short (3-4 page) papers should be critical explorations of texts and/or topics covered in class. Close readings of selected passages from the week s reading will be your primary means of inquiry. Midterm Essay: A short critical essay analyzing selected course readings, films, and class discussions to date. Final Project: A political autobiography or creative work synthesizing your critical understanding and personal relationship to one or more course texts. You will propose and develop this project in consultation with your instructors.

4 * * * INTRODUCTION (Readings subject to change.) Thurs. 5/18 1. James Baldwin, Stranger In the Village, Harper s Magazine, 1953 (orientation reading for 5/17) 2. Teju Cole, Black Body: Rereading James Baldwin s Stranger in the Village, The New Yorker, 8/9/2014 (orientation reading for 5/17) Supplementary primary sources: Photographs from Paris Exposition of 1900, Du Bois Exhibit Letter from Tufts Norman Hinsey (Tufts) to Gordon Heath and Lee Payant of L Abbaye (Paris, France), c. 1940s (in class) Weekly Response #1 due by 5pm Friday 5/19 (via to both professors) PART I: FUGITIVE TOURISM, JIM CROW TRAVELERS, AND THE NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT (1890s-1950s) Mon. 5/22 1. Michel Fabre, From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, , p William Wells Brown, Three Years in Europe, excerpts 3. Frederick Douglass, Southern Barbarism, Speech, April 16, (Optional) Charles Baraw, William Wells Brown, Three Years in Europe, and Fugitive Tourism, African American Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Fall 2011) Presentation 1: Sally Hemings, William Wells Brown, and/or Victor Séjour Tues. 5/23 1. Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Ch Fabre, From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, , p (Optional) W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of White Folk, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920)

5 4. (Optional) Jonathan Holloway, Jim Crow and the Great Migration Supplementary Primary Sources: Primary Sources on Jim Crow Era: Photographs from Paris Exposition of 1900, Du Bois Exhibit Excerpts from Sir Solomon Jones Footage s Thurs. 5/25 1. James Baldwin, This Morning, This Evening, So Soon 2. (Optional) T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Bricktop s Paris: African American Women in Paris Between the Two World Wars (2016), p (Optional) Rashida Braggs, Jazz Diasporas, Introduction Film Screening: Paris Blues (Dir. Martin Ritt, 1961) Weekly Response 2: Due by 12 noon Friday 5/26 (via to both professors) Mon. 5/29 Anita Reynolds, American Cocktail: A Colored Girl in the World, p Presentation 2: W.E.B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Countee Cullen, Gwendolyn Bennett, Claude McKay and/or Richard Wright Tues. 5/30 Anita Reynolds, American Cocktail: A Colored Girl in the World, p Thurs. 6/1 James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, selections Film Screening: Story of a Three Day Pass (Dir. Melvin Van Peebles, 1968)

6 Fri. 6/2 Weekly Response #3 Due by 12 noon Friday (via to both professors) PART II: JAMES BALDWIN AND THE LONG CIVIL RIGHTS ERA (1960s - present) Mon. 6/5 1. Michel Fabre, From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, , Ch Ellery Washington, James Baldwin s Paris, New York Times, Jan. 17, James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, selected essays Presentation 3: W.E.B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Countee Cullen, Gwendolyn Bennett, Claude McKay and/or Richard Wright Tues. 6/6 Film Screening: What Happened, Miss Simone? (Dir. Liz Garbus, 2015) Thurs. 6/8 Midterm Essay (Completed in class; No response due this week) Supplementary Primary Sources: Gordon Parks, Melvin Van Peebles, selected works Mon. 6/12 James Baldwin, "The Uses of the Blues" (1964); Claudia Roth Pierpoint, "The Many Battles of Nina Simone (2014); "Another Country: James Baldwin's Flight From America" (2009) Presentation 4: Gordon Parks, Melvin Van Peebles, Nina Simone, Chester Himes, and/or Barbara Chase-Riboud Tues. 6/13 1. James Baldwin, Selected Conversations and Interviews [Studs Terkel (1961), James Baldwin Comes Home (1976), Paris Review (1984), and Baldwin and Baker with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1985),]

7 2. James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket, selected writings [ The Discovery of What it Means to be an American (1959), The New Lost Generation, A Talk to Teachers (1963), If Black English Isn t a Language (1970)] 3. Jessica Harris, Titine and Tabasco from My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir Film Screening: I Am Not Your Negro (Dir. Raoul Peck, 2016) Thurs. 6/14 Weekly Response #4: Due by 12 noon Thurs. (via to both professors) Mon. 6/19 1. Alain Mabanckou, Letter to France, in Black France/ France Noire: The History and Politics of Blackness (2012) 2. Darlene Clark Hine et al, Black Europe and the African Diaspora, Preface and Introduction (2009) 3. Harvey Morris, France Fights Racism by Outlawing Race, New York Times, May 17, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Acting French, The Atlantic, August 29, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Equal in Paris? On Baldwin and Charlie Hebdo, n+1, January 13, Rachel Donadio, Battling to Save James Baldwin s Home in the South of France, New York Times, April 4, Amanda Taub, A Small French Town Infused with Us-vs.-Them Politics, New York Times, April 20, Presentation 5: Gordon Parks, Melvin Van Peebles, Nina Simone, Chester Himes, and/or Barbara Chase-Riboud Tues. 6/20 Film Screening: Divines (Dir. Houda Benyamina, 2016) Draft of Final Project Due Thurs. 6/22 Faculty Feedback on Final Project Drafts No weekly response due; continue work on projects. Mon. 6/26 - Tues. 6/27 Final Projects

8 SELECTED BIOGRAPHIES (FOR PRESENTATIONS) Before 1890 (1): Sally Hemings William Wells Brown Victor Séjour s (2 and 3) W.E.B. Du Bois Anna Julia Cooper Josephine Baker Langston Hughes Ada Bricktop Smith Sidney Bechet Gwendolyn Bennett Countee Cullen Claude McKay Richard Wright 1960s-Present (4 and 5) Gordon Parks Melvin Van Peebles Nina Simone Chester Himes Barbara Chase-Riboud Alain Mabanckou KENDRA TAIRA FIELD is assistant professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University. Field is the author of Growing Up with the Country: Family, Race, and Nation after the Civil War (Yale University Press, 2017). The book traces her ancestors migratory lives between the Civil War and the Great Migration. Field served as Assistant Editor to David Levering Lewis' W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography (Henry Holt, 2009) and has been awarded fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Huntington Library. Field has advised and appeared in historical documentary projects, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross" (2013) and "Roots: A History Revealed" (2016). Field received her Ph.D. in American History from New York University. She also holds a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from Williams College. Previously, Field served as Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside, and worked in education, organizing, and the non-profit sector in Boston and New York. KHARY SAEED JONES is an award-winning filmmaker, editor, and educator. His short film "Hug" was an Official Selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, the Palm Springs International ShortFest, and many other festivals, and played as part of the public programs of both the Museum of the City of New York and the Bronx Museum of Art. For "Hug," Jones won a Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 AFI Dallas International Film Festival and the Screenwriting Award at the 43rd Brooklyn Arts Council Film and Media Arts Festival. His previous film Three and a Half Thoughts, an adaptation of an early work by African American expatriate writer Chester Himes, screened at a number festivals and venues, including the Rooftop Films Summer Series, the Harlem International Film Festival, and the Athens (OH) International Film and Video Festival. He has served on the editorial teams behind the documentary features: Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart (American Masters, 2018); He Named Me Malala (Fox Searchlight, 2015); Sembene! (Kino Lorber, 2015); Teach (CBS/Participant Media, 2013); and The World According to Dick Cheney (Showtime, 2013). A graduate of Morehouse College (BA) and Columbia University (M.A./M.F.A.), Khary is a Lecturer in the Department of Drama and Dance and in the Film and Media Studies Program at Tufts University.