We all use stereotypes – to define others and to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. This class will attempt to unpack the cultural representations of the “other” we call stereotypes as we read through the literature of the 20C. This class will think through the role of literature in negotiating, reinforcing, and challenging how we are defined and how we define others through social categories as we also think about how stereotypes mold our reading process. Because race is the salient social category through which “America” is lived and sexuality is a salient way that race is constituted, this class will focus on reading representations of the intersection of these two modalities of power. We will read literature as one among many multiple, shifting discourses within the broader discursive formations of race and sex. That is, we will read literary texts as one type of cultural knowledge among many (including historical, scientific, sociological, popular, etc.) that deploys sexuality to define racial categories (and vice versa) in U.S racial/sexual formation.

Texts may include James Baldwin’s Another Country, Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Gertrude Stein’s “Melanctha,” Richard Wright’s 12 Million Black Voices, T.S. Eliot’s “Columbo and Bolo” poems. Other potential texts include the poetry of T.S. Eliot, Frank O’Hara, Langston Hughes and/or Allen Ginsburg, the writings of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Delaney, and/or David Henry Hwang. We will temper our literary readings with literary criticism on selected readings, critical/theoretical essays (by Sander Gilman, Scott Pickering, Homi Bhabha, José Muñoz, Eileen Boris), and historical texts (by Angela Davis, Gail Bederman, Gunnar Myrdal).

A decent grade will depend heavily on engaged class participation and interrogation of each day’s reading as well as weekly response postings, several short papers and a final paper project.