Black Studies Readings for AALCI in June

This June at the University of Texas San Antonio, I'll work with fellows in the African American Literatures and Cultures Institute, a program founded and directed by literary scholar and make-it-happen extraordinaire Joycelyn Moody. I handle the day-to-day seminar duties and reading assignments for the institute.

The fellows in the program will spend considerable time preparing professional statements and writing samples, so their time for concentrating on group reading is limited. Still, I've assembled a few works that we'll take some time to look at collectively this summer.

Week 1
• “The Making of an Expert” by K. A. Anders, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely

• From The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker

• “The Transmission” by Charles Johnson

• Poetry Packet #1: Works by Elizabeth Alexander, Opal Palmer Adisa, Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Robert Hayden, Vievee Francis, Frances E. W. Harper, Langston Hughes, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Dudley Randall, Ishmael Reed, Frank X. Walker, Phillis Wheatley, Natasha Trethewey

• “Message to the Grassroots” by Malcolm X

• Black Panther Party Platforms 1966 & 1972

• From Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks

• From The Black Woman: An Anthology by Toni Cade Bambara

• Poetry Packets #2& #3: Works by Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Helene Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Margaret Walker

Week 2
• The Black Book & “Behind the Making of the Black Book”by Toni Morrison

• Black Studies & The Chronicle of Higher Education -- "Black Studies: 'Swaggering Into the Future" by Stacey Patton; "The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations" by Naomi Riley; "The Inferiority of Blackness as a Subject" by Tressie McMillan Cottom ; "A Note to Readers" by Liz McMillen [Further reading]

• Poetry Packets #4 #5: Works by Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Etheridge Knight, Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Margaret Walker, Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, Jayne Cortez, Nikki Giovanni, Etheridge Knight, Larry Neal, Henry Dumas, Carolyn Rodgers, Sonia Sanchez

• “Recitatif”by Toni Morrison

• “Black Nerds” by Trudier Harris

• “Acting White” by Roland Fryer

• Poetry Packets #6 & #7: Works by Kevin Young, Tyehimba Jess, Allison Joseph, Gary Copeland Lilley, Evie Shockley, Patricia Smith

• “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston

• “Afrofuturism” by Alondra Nelson

• The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

• “Black Women and Fat” by Alice Randall, “Do Black Women Really Want to Be Fat?” By Noliwe M. Rooks

• Selections from Aaron McGruder's A Right to Be Hostile & Keith Knight's Are We Feeling Safer Yet?

• Poetry Packets #8 & #9: Works by Kelly Norman Ellis, Treasure Shields Redmond, Tyehimba Jess, Jessica care Moore, Tracie Morris, Dometi Pongo, Saul Williams, Maya Angelou, Michael Warr, Cornelius Eady, Essex Hemphill, Patricia Smith, Treasure Shields Redmond

Week 3
• “The Economic Plight of Inner-City Black Males” by William J. Wilson

• “Creation Myth” By Malcolm Gladwell

• Poetry Packet #10: Works by Richard Wright haiku selections, Elizabeth Alexander’s “twitter poem project” selection, Teju Cole’s “small fates” selection

• “Drug Policy as Race Policy: Best Seller Galvanizes the Debate” By Jennifer Schuessler

• From The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander