Instr:                 Jill Zellmer
Office:              CRT 586,     229-6047
e-mail:              zellmer@uwm.edu
Office hours:     by appointment.

Course Information:                 TR  9:30-10:45        BUS S165

Course Description

In Harriet Brent Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1961), the narrator, Linda Brent, prays that “God would raise her [daughter] up friends.”  Prevented from caring for and protecting her own child, Linda knows that her daughter’s safety and well-being depends upon the goodwill of friends.  Many African American writers record how friendship acts as a lifeline: without true friends to rely on, one’s well-being and even survival is endangered.  This was especially true when African Americans were enslaved; however, friendship remains a critical antidote to racism, sexism, economic exploitation, and other forms of oppression from the Civil Rights era to the present day.  We will explore how various African American writers define friendship, its possibilities and limitations.  Many of the texts we will read contain stories of friends who, despite differences in gender, race, economic status, and/or age, form intimate bonds that alter their perspectives on the world.  There will be lectures that provide historical, biographical, critical backgrounds, but class time will also be spent in discussion of close readings of particular texts.

Tentative Reading List:
We will primarily focus on novels, but may also read selected short stories/excerpts from novels contained in a course packet.

Harriet Brent Jacobs – Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
Ralph Ellison – The Invisible Man (1952)
James Baldwin – Another Country (1963)
Toni Morrison – Sula (1973)
Alice Walker – Meridian (1976)
Shirley Ann Williams - Dessa Rose (1986)
Earnest Gaines – A Gathering of Old Men (1990)