Black Studies 335: The Black Woman: A Cultural Analysis

Instructor: Laura D. Head

Office: New Humanities building room 231, phone 338-2309

e-mail: lhead@sfsu.edu

Office Hours: Tues and Thurs 12:30 to 4, and by appointment

Spring Semester 2005

Course description:

An examination and comparative analysis of Black women in the Americas, the Caribbean, and on the African continent with particular emphasis on their struggles for rights as Blacks and as women, their contribution to the development of their societies, their political aptitude, and their artistic adeptness.

General Education Status:

This course is part of the Segment III general education cluster “The Black Experience in the U.S” and the “Women of Color in the United States” cluster. Students will receive general education credit for this course if they complete the cluster as described in the Class schedule and Bulletin, including meeting the requirement that they have earned at least 60 units by the end of the semester they take the course.

Course Objectives:

1. Students will learn of the tremendous impacts and contributions Black women have made to the arts and sciences.

2. Students will become familiarized with how Black women have always interfaced their role as wife/mother with the role of provider/fighter in the struggle

3. Students will gain insight into the tremendous impact Black women are making in unexpected fields

4. Students will gain an understanding of the nature of racism and sexism as they effect Black women throughout the world

5. Students will become more knowledgeable about some of the major issues that effect the lives of Black women and their divergent stance on the feminist from region to region

Instructors expectations:

1. students should complete assigned readings by the date they are listed on the syllabus.

2. students should attend all classes and be on time

3. students should turn in all assignments on time

4. students should get lecture notes from one of their classmates if they must miss a class

5. students should develop the habit of questioning things, especially definitions, assumptions and so-called authorities

Grading:

midterm examination - 30%

term paper (approximately 15 pages) - 30%

final examination-- 30%

class participation - 10%

NOTE: I DO NOT ACCEPT ANY LATE ASSIGNMENTS

NOTE: I DO NOT ACCEPT ASSIGNMENTS BY E-MAIL OR FAX

Required texts:

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Second Edition

(book is available at Marcus books in San Francisco and Oakland)

a packet of articles available at Dragon Printing, 450 Taraval Street, S.F., 415-566-0585

Recommended Supplementary Texts:

Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: the Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America

Jeanne Noble, Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of my Black Sisters

Beverly Guy-Sheftall (ed), Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought

Darlene Clark Hine, A Shining Thread of Hope: A History of Black Women in America

Darlene Clark Hine, Wilma King and Linda Reed (eds), "We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible": A Reader in Black Women's History

Hull, Scott and Smith (eds), All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, but some of Us are Brave: Black Women's Studies

Smith, B. (ed), Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology

Course Requirements:

Feb 1: Introduction to the course

Feb 8: Black women, racism and sexism

Collins, preface and chapters 1 and 2

Feb 15: Black feminism

Guy-Sheftall, Introduction, The Evolution of Feminist Consciousness Among African American Women (packet)

Steady, African Feminism: A worldwide perspective (packet

Collins, What’s in a Name: Womanism, Black Feminism and Beyond (packet)

Walker, Womanist (definition) (packet)

Feb 22: Historical Perspectives

Hine, Lifting the Veil, Shattering the Silence (packet)

White, Female slaves: Sex Roles and Status in the antebellum Plantation South (packet)

Hine, Rape and the Inner Lives of Black women in the Middle West (packet)

Shaw, Black Club Women and the Creation of the National Association of Colored Women (packet)

Yee, Organizing for Racial Justice: Black Women and the Dynamics of Race and Sex in Female Antislavery Societies, 1832-1860 (packet)

Terborg-Penn, Discontented Black Feminists (packet)

Mar 1: Term Paper Topic Statement due

Mar 8: Black Women, Education and Work

Collins, chapter 3

Black Women in the Labor Force (packet)

Mar 15: Black Women and our families

Collins, chapter 6, 7 and 8

Solinger, Race and Value: Black and White Illegitimate Babies in the U.S., 1945 -1965 (packet)

Mar 21 to 25: Spring Recess, no classes

Mar 29: midterm examination

Mar 29: Sterotypes and Images of Black women

Collins, chapters 4 and 5

Apr 5: term paper annotated bibliography due

Apr 5: Black Women in Struggle and Resistance

Collins, chapter 9

Apr 12: Black Women, Sexuality and Sexual Abuse

Collins, chapter 6

Rodrique, The Black Community and the Birth Control Movement (packet)

Ross, African American Women and Abortion: 1800 - 1970 (packet)

Villarose, Revelations (packet)

Apr 19: Images of Black Women in Literature

Christian, Trajectories of Self-Definition: Placing Contemporary Afro-American Women's Fiction (packet)

Brown-Guillory, Black Theater Tradition and Women Playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance (packet)

Christian, Afro-American Women Poets: A Historical Introduction (packet)

Apr 26: Black Women in the Creative Arts

White-Dixon, Black Women in Concert Dance: the Philadelphia Divas (packet)

May 3: Black Feminist Thought and the Future

Collins, chapters 10, 11 and 12

May 10: term paper due (including original topic statement and annotated bibliography)

May 17: summary and review

Final Examination: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 4:10 to 6:55 p.m.