During my “Jim Crow and the Holocaust” class, I am continually coming across new texts to add to an ever expanding bibliography or work that looks at the intersections between Jim Crow in the United States and the Holocaust in Europe. Recently, I read James Baldwin’s “Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White,” which appeared in The New York Times on April 9, 1967, two-months … Read More James Baldwin, Jim Crow, and the Holocaust
Sometimes, a book, for whatever reason, does not grab you on the first read through. This was definitely the case with Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit (1944). The first time I read Smith’s bestselling novel, I found it lacking, for a myriad of reasons. I think part of this feeling stemmed from all of the novels I have read, by Black authors, about interracial intimacy, … Read More Rereading Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit” :Part I
Over the past two years, I have taught three multicultural American literature courses, at various levels from sophomore to graduate. This fall, I am teaching my fourth, and I am doing things a little differently because it is an upper level course. As I constructed each of the previous courses, I purposefully thought about a wide variety of texts and assignments for students. I … Read More Multicultural American Literature Syllabus 2021
Every semester, I post the syllabi for the course I am teaching. This semester, I am teaching “Multicultural American Literature,” a graduate level course for education majors. It is an online, asynchronous course, so my approach differs from the face to face classes or online synchronous courses I teach. Since students in this course are education majors, I wanted to focus on things that … Read More Multicultural American Literature and Pedagogy Syllabus
Over the past few years, I have tried various new assignments in an attempt to move away, somewhat, from the traditional research essay. In my course “The City in American Literature: New Orleans, Chicago, and New York,” I had students create a collaborative Wiki that consisted of the following: a title page, notes, allusions or references, interactive map, questions about the text, a review … Read More The Unessay Project
Interminable Rambling 