Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 8.03 Education
Presentation #1 Title
African American Studies in Appalachia: Teaching Literature about Slavery and Jim Crow along the Mason-Dixon Line
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Because my area of scholarly focus—African American literature—explores issues that some students (particularly those from homogenous backgrounds) consider inflammatory, I struggle to create an environment where the free exchange of ideas is encouraged; this has proven to be a challenge for me in my current position at an open-enrollment campus on the banks of the Ohio River. My students’ backgrounds vary. Some are from affluent suburbs of Columbus, and a few are from underfunded urban school districts in Cincinnati, but many more are from rural communities in Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. When I teach challenging texts, like James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man,” for instance, I understand that each of them must negotiate a regional identity as they undertake an interpretation of the story. Many of them are uncomfortable; some are resistant. To meet the challenge of converting apprehension and ire into considered analysis, I first encouraged students to discuss why the author may have wanted to elicit such a vitriolic response in his readers. When no one responded, I asked them to consider how the story is part of a progression of texts about African American experiences by comparing Baldwin’s protagonist’s fetishization of African American women to Frederick Douglass’s narrative about his Aunt Bailey’s treatment at the hands of Captain Anthony. When those topics failed to garner discussion, I asked students to consider whether they might have encountered that oversexualization in contemporary American culture. Addressing the hypersexualization of Nikki Minaj in Trey Songz’s video for “Bottom’s Up” proved a more effective vehicle for connecting the issues of race to students’ lived experiences. In my presentation, I hope to raise questions (and perhaps even venture some answers) about the advantages and ethics of using popular culture to encourage open, if often uncomfortable, conversations about African American literary history.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Sandra Cox (Ph.D. - University of Kansas) is an Assistant Professor of English at Shawnee State University. She has recently published articles in the journals Antipodas, The Journal of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies and Southwestern American Literature. Dr. Cox’s first monograph An Ethics of Reading: Interpretive Strategies for a Multicultural American Canon is slated for release in 2014.
African American Studies in Appalachia: Teaching Literature about Slavery and Jim Crow along the Mason-Dixon Line
Harris Hall 446
Because my area of scholarly focus—African American literature—explores issues that some students (particularly those from homogenous backgrounds) consider inflammatory, I struggle to create an environment where the free exchange of ideas is encouraged; this has proven to be a challenge for me in my current position at an open-enrollment campus on the banks of the Ohio River. My students’ backgrounds vary. Some are from affluent suburbs of Columbus, and a few are from underfunded urban school districts in Cincinnati, but many more are from rural communities in Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. When I teach challenging texts, like James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man,” for instance, I understand that each of them must negotiate a regional identity as they undertake an interpretation of the story. Many of them are uncomfortable; some are resistant. To meet the challenge of converting apprehension and ire into considered analysis, I first encouraged students to discuss why the author may have wanted to elicit such a vitriolic response in his readers. When no one responded, I asked them to consider how the story is part of a progression of texts about African American experiences by comparing Baldwin’s protagonist’s fetishization of African American women to Frederick Douglass’s narrative about his Aunt Bailey’s treatment at the hands of Captain Anthony. When those topics failed to garner discussion, I asked students to consider whether they might have encountered that oversexualization in contemporary American culture. Addressing the hypersexualization of Nikki Minaj in Trey Songz’s video for “Bottom’s Up” proved a more effective vehicle for connecting the issues of race to students’ lived experiences. In my presentation, I hope to raise questions (and perhaps even venture some answers) about the advantages and ethics of using popular culture to encourage open, if often uncomfortable, conversations about African American literary history.
