Course Description
This summer session, we read a survey of black women’s writing and cultural production from slavery to the present. We will explore a range of materials and texts, including slave narratives, short stories, film adaptions, poetry, and novels. This course edition will focus on Black girls and women seeking, defining, and forming articulations of freedom and friendship in their writing. We will locate, analyze, and interpret the ways black women secret themselves away from threats, assert their intelligence through wordplay, form friendships that escape loneliness, reclaim their sexuality, and observe and value quotidian Black life. This course will draw on arguments and concepts from literary history, Black studies, Black feminism, gender studies, queer studies, and more. Authors include Harriet Jacobs, Mary Church Terrell, Nella Larsen, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Toni Morrison.
Learning Online:
We have 3 main platforms for this hybrid course, for which the majority of the work is online:
- Our Cuny Commons Class Site (for course information, schedule, blog posts, comment replies, and asynchronous class work). The link to the class site is here Black Women Writers 3835
- Zoom (for synchronous lectures, discussions, group work, and office hours). The link for class Zoom is here. The password is listed on Blackboard and has been sent via email because the Cuny Commons site is semi-public.
- Blackboard (for submission of writing assessments, including the link to your blog posts, critical analysis essays, and access to required readings in addition to texts purchased by students. Except for Sula by Toni Morrison, all texts can be accessed online via links provided on Blackboard and the Cuny Commons site). The link to Blackboard for students signed up through BLS is here: BLS 3835 Blackboard. The link to Blackboard for students signed up through ENG is here: ENG 3835.
Each class date is listed in the “Course Schedule” on the Cuny Commons site that notes if the class is asynchronous or synchronous and the corresponding platform is being used).
Course Texts
1 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (for purchase in the Baruch College bookstore)
Click here for online free version of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
2. Click here for “Betsy’s Borrowed Baby” an unpublished short story by Mary Church Terrell NOTE: You need to log into your CUNY library account to access this text.
3. Click here for “Venus and the Night Doctors” by Mary Church Terrell NOTE: You need to log into your CUNY library account to access this text.
4. Click here for an archival “Letter from Mary Chruch Terrell to Mr.Metealf” NOTE: You need to log into your CUNY library account to access this text.
5. Passing by Nella Larsen (for purchase in the Baruch College Bookstore)
Click here for an online free version of Passing by Nella Larsen
6. Click here for Gwendolyn Books’s “The Bean Eaters”
Click here for Gwendolyn Books’s “kichenette building”
Click here for Gwendolyn Books’s “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed”
Click here for Gwendolyn Books’s “We Real Cool”
Click here for Gwendolyn Books’ “Boy Breaking Glass”
7. Sula by Toni Morrison (available for purchase in the Baruch College bookstore)
Statement of Care
This class is invested in cultivating an environment of learning, creativity, connection, and care. Our knowledge and engagement matter; our individual goals, personal selves, mental and physical health, and communities matter. Please use the following resources at Baruch College to help you keep up in the class and take care. If you email any contacts listed on Baruch’s One Stop Shop or Boss, please feel welcome to follow up with Professor Erica Richardson, especially if you require a more immediate response. I am happy to be cc’d on emails to ensure that your voice is heard or you get the help you need.
Click here for Baruch’s One Stop Shop (BOSS)
To practice an ethos of care in the classroom, everyone has 1 48 hour extension they can use on any assignment. You can miss two days of synchronous class without penalty. The third class you miss and the overall course grade drops by a half letter (e.g. B+ becomes a B; B becomes B-). If you know you may miss more than 2 days of class for any reason and need a third day, please consider attending a class trip and posting a blog post for extra credit (the optional class trip to see Black Mother Lost Daughter is Saturday, June 24, 2023, from 2:45 pm to 4:30).
