This course centers the act of writing and how blackness is understood and lived in the US, especially how Blackness can shape understandings of existence both in terms of critiquing power and enacting freedom dreams.
Process a complete drop (100% refund, no W recorded)
January 9:
Drop this course (100% refund, no W recorded; after this date, W's are recorded)
January 9:
Process a complete drop (90% refund, no W recorded; after this date, W's are recorded)
January 10:
Process a complete withdrawal (90% refund, W recorded)
January 10:
Withdraw from this course (100% refund, W recorded)
January 11:
Add this course
January 11:
Last day to change to or from audit
January 17:
Process a complete withdrawal (75% refund, W recorded)
January 17:
Withdraw from this course (75% refund, W recorded)
January 24:
Process a complete withdrawal (50% refund, W recorded)
January 24:
Withdraw from this course (50% refund, W recorded)
January 31:
Process a complete withdrawal (25% refund, W recorded)
January 31:
Withdraw from this course (25% refund, W recorded)
February 21:
Withdraw from this course (0% refund, W recorded)
You can't drop your last class using the "Add/Drop" menu in DuckWeb. Go to the “Completely Withdraw from Term/University” link to begin the complete withdrawal process. If you need assistance with a complete drop or a complete withdrawal, please contact the Office of Academic Advising, 101 Oregon Hall, 541-346-3211 (8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday). If you are attempting to completely withdraw after business hours, and have difficulty, please contact the Office of Academic Advising the next business day.
Expanded Course Description
Throughout this course, you will engage with a rich tradition of Black-centered essay writing. I have chosen the essays based on the impact they have had and continue to have on how “blackness” is both understood and lived in the United States. More specifically, the pieces work to make sense of the ways in which “blackness” shapes (and shapes our understanding of) existence. For our authors, “writing in black” becomes a means to process the deeply contradictory nature of “race” in the modern world, while thinking and writing how to live with it all.
As you’ll see from the outset, our authors are engaged in truly multi-disciplinary work: philosophical questions of existence form through sociological fieldwork and historical digging; literature and etymology push the bounds of psychoanalysis. Both our discussions and writing assignments will require such disciplinary flexibility.
I will ask you to write 500-word responses every week in order to prepare for our discussions, and to write a more extensive final essay of 2000 words, in drafts and with revision. With all your writing, we will engage it as process and craft. Towards that goal, we’ll analyze our essays not just for content, but also for their remarkable range of genres and styles.
