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ENG 107: Women Writing Desire: Caribbean Fiction and Film
Tue/Fri 12:30-1:50 pm
Mandel G12
Professor Smith
Office: 217 Mandel
Tel: 6-2094
E-mail:
Office Hours: Thurs 12-1:30pm and 3:30-5pm
At the heart of this semester’s readings are five novels, a critical study of literary texts, and a journalist’s quest to find her great-grandmother. We will also view two films. These texts bring us face to face with unsettling scenes of adolescent and teenage sexual exploration. In at least one case, a young woman’s abuse stems from her own mother’s commitment to sexual respectability and racial purity.These explorations of pleasure, intimacy, respectability, and power are thus uncomfortable.They press us to connect the late 20th and 21st centuries to nineteenth-century contexts of enslavement and indentureship. Letters and photographs are just two of the ways that these texts ask us to think about the claims of the past and the power of the archives. Indeed, we will have to ask what the archives promise us – how they shape our desires about the past, future and present – and what they cannot give us.
In this course you will:
learn to recognize strategies associated with narrative fiction and non-fiction
become familiar with Caribbean writers’ (and, more generally, postcolonial writers’) fraught relationship to literary history
familiarize yourself with debates about feminine writing, womanism/feminism, the place of non-heteronormative desire in “global-south” and “global-north” feminisms, and the place of race in gendered identities
become familiar with key moments in Caribbean history and culture, including slavery, indentureship, anticolonial nationalism, independence, and the cynicism (or despair) about the post-post-colonial present
practice reading critically, and writing with force and imagination
The following seven books have been ordered from the campus bookstore. You should have them with you in class when we discuss them:
Nelly Rosario, Song of the Water Saints(2003)
Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman (2014)
Patricia Powell, Pagoda(1998)
Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar(2010)
EdwidgeDanticat,,Claire of the Sea Light(2013)
OonyaKempadoo, Buxton Spice (2004)
Jamaica Kincaid, Autobiography of My Mother (1996)
Requirements:
Attendance: It is important that you attend all classes, that you have prepared the material beforehand, and that you have the assigned readings with you in class. If you miss class you are responsible for covering the material. If you miss more than two or three courses you should see me about the possibility of dropping the course.
Participation: In order to sustain a space of engaged listening and speaking when we meet, please plan to be on time, to stay engaged, and to treat the classroom as an offline zone. Constant movement in and out of the room during our time together is distracting, as is time spent online.You should have readings with you in class, and use them as the basis of insightful, consistent participation in class.
Please tell me at the beginning of the semester about:
religious exemptions, athletic exemptions, and documented disabilities. (
( of accommodation including athletic schedules and letters from the Athletics Program should be presented at the start of the semester to ensure provision of accommodations. If you have questions about documenting a disability or requesting academic accommodations, you should contact Beth Rodgers-Kay in Academic Services (x6-3470 or .)
15-minute oral presentation guiding us in that day’s reading at the beginning of class. There will be guidelines on LATTE.
4-page paper due October 6 (guidelines on LATTE)
Final Research paperwith multiple phases:
Bibliography, thesis, refined proposal (two pages):Nov 7
10-min presentation to class during last 2 sessions:Dec 5 or Dec 8
Final Project: 12-page paper:Dec 10
You are encouraged to make use of archival material in this paper, including the theorization of the archives. During the semester you will meet with Brandeis librarians. You can, for instance, research the historical events alluded to in the novels, or compare the ways in which letters and photographs are utilized in archival collections, on the one hand, and in the texts we are discussing, on the other. You are working towards a 12-page paper that should include extended discussion of one of the required texts (seven books,two films).
You have the option of writing your paper on one of six novels that I have asked to be placed on reserve:
Kerry Young’s trilogy of a Chinese Jamaican family: Pao (2011), Gloria (2013), and Show Me A Mountain (2017);
Nicole Dennis-Benn, Here Comes the Sun (2016) about class, tourism, and sexuality in Jamaica;
Elizabeth Hackshaw-Walcott, Mrs B (2014) about a well-to-do Trinidadian family struggling to deal with class, violence and intimacy; and
Mayra Santos-Febres, Fe EnDisfraz(2009),whichis only in the Spanish original.Santos-Febres, a Puerto Rican writer, has her protagonist exploreS/M practices as a way of trying to understand slavery.
Your paper would introduce and analyze one of these novels, utilizing the concepts that we have been discussing all semester, and perhaps suggesting connections to the texts that we read together.
You may also choose to write two 6-page papers: one on a text we discussed, and one drawn from this latter group.
Please use the resources of the Writing Center in Goldfarb as you prepare your written assignments.
Grading:
Attendance: 10%
Participation 10%
1 oral presentation on class readings 10%
4-page paper, due Oct 620%
Final research paper:
Nov 7 proposal5%
10-min presentation5%
Final paper40%
You should plan to spend at least nine hours a week outside of class preparing for our time together.
You should begin thinking about assignments as early as possible. Remember that writing is thinking (that is, don’t “leave the writing” until the end). Unless otherwise indicated, papers should be uploaded to LATTE. They should be 12-point font, double-spaced with one-inch margins, and citations should be in Chicago or MLA format. Late papers will be deducted by a 1/3 of a letter grade every day that they are late.
You are expected to be honest in all of your academic work. For instance, you should not submit the same work for two different courses. You should cite all sources of your ideas carefully. Please consult Brandeis University Rights and Responsibilities for all policies and procedures related to academic integrity. Allegations of alleged academic dishonesty will be forwarded to the Director of Academic Integrity. Sanctions for academic dishonesty can include failing grades and/or suspension from the university. Citation and research assistance can be found at
Graduate Students should see me about the course’s relationship to your research goals. You should turn in the short paper as well as a final paper of 18-20 pages on the final day of class.
If you are auditing this class,your regular attendance and active participation in class are expected.
Reading Schedule:
(Please check LATTE frequently for possible changes to this schedule, and for dates of oral presentations)
Fri Sep 2: Introductions
Tue Sep 5: M. Jacqui Alexander, “Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen”;
Andil Gosine “Ohrni and Cutlass”;
Fri Sep 8: Jamaica Kincaid, Autobiography of My Mother (1996) 1-83
Tue Sep 12:Kincaid, Autobiography of My Mother 87-160
Fri Sep 15:Kincaid, Autobiography of My Mother 163-228
Tue Sep 19:Patricia Powell, Pagoda (1998) 1-146; and
Makeda Silvera, “Man Royals and Sodomites”
Fri Sep 22: No class: Rosh Hashanah
Tue Sep 26:Powell, Pagoda; and147-245
Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar (2010) “Introduction,” pp. 1-28
Fri Sep 29: Library Session: meet in Goldfarb Library
Read beforehandAndil Gosine: “My Mother’s Baby: Wrecking Work After Indentureship” (2016)
Tue Oct 3: No class: “Brandeis Thursday”
Fri Oct 6:Nellie Rosario, Song of the Water Saints
DUE: 4-page paper on a concept we have been discussing, which you may apply to an assigned text (prompts on LATTE)
Tue Oct 10:Rosario, Song of the Water Saints
Donette Francis, “Strategies of Caribbean Feminism”
Fri Oct 13: Oonya Kempadoo, Buxton Spice
Tue Oct 17:Kempadoo, Buxton Spice
Fri Oct 20 Frantz Fanon, from “The Black Woman and the White Man”; and
Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar pp. 136-168
Tue Oct 24: Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar pp. 29-67; and
Makeda Silvera, “Man-Royals and Sodomites”
Fri Oct 27: Tinsley, Thiefing Sugar pp. 102-135 and 68-101
Tue Oct 31: Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman(2014) pp. xix-101
Fri Nov 3: Bahadur, Coolie Woman pp. 103-214
Tue Nov 7:Claire Tancons, “Women in the Whirlwind: Withholding Guadeloupe’s Archipelagic History” (2010)
Due today: bibliography and thesis of your final paper(s)
Fri Nov 10:Library Session: meet in Goldfarb
Watch beforehand Finding Samuel Lowe,Dir. Jeannette Kong
Tue Nov 14:Danticat, Claire of the Sea Light
Fri Nov 17:Danticat, Claire of the Sea Light
Tue Nov 21:Danticat, Claire of the Sea Light
Tue Nov 28:Yarimar Bonilla “Ordinary Sovereignty” (2013); and
Tinsley Thiefing Sugar 201-231
Fri Dec 1:Michelle Rowley, “Whose Time Is It?” (2010)
Tues Dec 5: 5-10-min presentations of your final projects
Fri Dec 8: Continuing presentations
Sun Dec 10: Final paper(s) due