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Forløb#2 The American Promise I (eksamen)
Course: The American Promise – and the African-American Experience
The course explores the ideas of the American Promise from the first settlers arriving to the New World and to contemporary reflections over the ideal and the reality of the United States. Not least seen from the perspective of African Americans.
In 1897 the African American sociologist and civil rights leader W.E.B Du Bois wrote about the identity of Black Americans:
“An American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
This distinct feeling of being black in America is still relevant today even after the first African American President took office in 2008. Because what does it mean to be African American and what is the public face of black America today?
This course explores African American identity throughout the history of the U.S. with a particular emphasis on how selected African Americans have given voice to inequalities of Black America.
Dealing with historical sources, from slave narratives to different speeches of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as different literary and cultural representations of racial struggles in the US, we strive to get a general image of this issue in America.
We will focus on the issue of race and African American identity in the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass from 1854, in the growing African American awareness during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s represented by Langston Hughes, in the fight for equality and desegregation in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and in contemporary voices of African Americans.
The course seeks to find similarities and differences in the ways African Americans have told their stories and how they perceive themselves in American society. Not least, we will use the American Dream as a focal point for understanding and comparing African American voices.
The final part of the course explores the question of identity and racial equality in a contemporary perspective trying to find answers to the question to what extent race is still an issue in the U.S. and whether Martin Luther King Jr’s dream has been reached more than sixty years later? Here students will work on a group based project focusing on contemporary African American voices.
- Individualism
- Equal opportunity
- Progress
- Freedom
- Material comfort
- The American dream
- Social mobility
- Race
- New world and old World
Fokus
Der lægges i dette forløb særligt vægt på følgende sproglige områder:
- Sprogvariation (herunder sociolekter)
Tekstanalytisk lægges der særlig fokus på følgende områder:
- Argumentationsanalyse (særlig i forbindelse med taler)
- Formel og indholdsmæssig digtanalyse
- Tekstanalyse af noveller
Faglige mål:
– anvende en grundviden om historiske, kulturelle og samfundsmæssige forhold i Storbritannien og USA til analyse og perspektivering af aktuelle forhold
– perspektivere det givne materiale kulturelt, samfundsmæssigt og historisk
– forstå mundtligt og skriftligt engelsk om almene og faglige emner
– beherske et varieret ordforråd, som gør det muligt at deltage i en samtale og diskussion på engelsk
– analysere og fortolke litterære tekster, ikke-litterære tekster og mediestof, herunder film, med anvendelse af faglig terminologi
Course materials:
Secondary texts:
From Black Voices – The African-American Experience from Slavery to Current Racial Issues. Gyldendal, 2017.
Introduction – “Slavery” p. 8-14
Introduction – “Separate but Equal” p. 60-63
Introduction – “I am a Man” p. 96-98
Introduction “Post-Racist America” p. 140-144
From Sociology - Williams, Robin - "Core American Values"
From USA NOW. Forlaget Columbus, 2014.
“1.4.1 Immigrant, religious and moral, and frontier beliefs in American society” p. 30-33
“1.4.2 The political, social and human beliefs” p. 33-35
Primary texts: fiction and non-fiction
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Chapter 1) (1854)
Hughes, Langston. Merry-Go-Round (1942)
Hughes, Langston. I, Too (1926)
Jackson, Shirley. After You My Dear Alphonse (1949)
King Jr., Martin Luther. I Have a Dream (1963) = 11 students
Lazarus, Emma. The New Colossus (1883)
Malcolm X. The Ballot or the Bullet (1964) = 11 students
Meeropol, Abel and Billie Holiday. Strange Fruit (1939)
Whitman, Walt. I Hear America Singing (1860)
“The Declaration of Independence” (Excerpt, 1776)
“The Best is Yet to Come” for Donald J. Trump (2020)
“Go From There” for Joe Biden (2020)
Other Material:
America in Color (2017) S1E4 (The 1950s) and S1E5 (The 1960s). Excerpt from two episodes of the documentary film "America in Color".
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