Community Studies - Fall 1998

The course will introduce students to the history of the civil rights movement, perhaps the most significant grassroots social movement in American history. Built around lectures and readings in primary and secondary works, and featuring a number of segments of the public television series, "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years," the course will devote particular attention to the role of rank-and-file activists in shaping the movement. We will also attempt to assess the ways in which the movement changed--and did not change--American society as a whole.

Students will be evaluated on the basis of:

1. participation in required weekly discussion sections;
2. three short assignments (4 pages each) over the course of the quarter, explaining, contextualizing and elaborating on specific documents or first hand accounts or addressed to key historical questions;
3. an in-class final examination.

• Robert Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND: A HISTORY OF AMERICA'S CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• Anne Moody, COMING OF AGE IN MISSISSIPPI
• Clayborne Carson and others (editors), THE EYES ON THE PRIZE CIVIL RIGHTS READER
• Clayborne Carson, IN STRUGGLE: SNCC AND THE BLACK AWAKENING OF THE 1960S

These are available at Baytree Bookstore and are on two-hour reserve at McHenry Library.

Sept. 26: Introduction to the course

Sept. 29-Oct. 3: The roots of the movement

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, Preface and pp. 1-18
• EYES ON PRIZE READER, pp. 1-106
• Moody, COMING OF AGE, pp. 11-138

Film: EYES ON THE PRIZE, series 1, part 1 ("Awakenings")

Oct. 6-10: The sit-ins and the formation of SNCC

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 19-44
• EYES ON PRIZE READER, pp. 107-132
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, Introduction, chs. 1-2
• Moody, COMING OF AGE, pp. 121-258

Film: EYES, series 1, part 3 ("Ain't Scared of Your Jails")

Oct. 13-17: Civil rights as a mass movement

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 45-85
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 133-65
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, chs. 3-7
• Moody, COMING OF AGE, pp. 261-384

Film: EYES, series 1, part 4 ("No Easy Walk")

First assignment due Oct. 13

Oct. 20-24: Freedom Summer

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 86-126
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 166-203
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, chs. 8-9

Film: EYES, series 1, part 5 ("Mississippi: Is This America?")

Oct. 27-31: Culmination at Selma

Reading:

• Wiesbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 127-53
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 204-27

Film: EYES, series 1, part 6 ("Bridge to Freedom")

Nov. 3-7: New directions in the movement

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 154-85
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 228-87
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, chs. 10-11

Film: EYES, series 2, part 1 ("The Time Has Come")

Second assignment due Nov. 3

Nov. 10-14: A divided nation

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 186-221
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 288-332
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, chs. 12-13

Film: EYES, series 2, part 2 ("Two Societies")

Nov. 17-21: The emergence of radicalism

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 222-61
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 333-82, 439-99
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, chs. 14-15

Film: EYES, series 2, part 3 ("Power")

Nov. 24-26: Repression and decline

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 262-87
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 383-438, 500-90
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, chs. 16-18

Film: EYES, series 2, part 6 ("A Nation of Law?")

Third assignment due Nov. 24

(No class Nov. 27-28: Thanksgiving)

Dec. 1-5: The legacy of the movement

Reading:

• Weisbrot, FREEDOM BOUND, pp. 288-317
• EYES ON THE PRIZE READER, pp. 591-722
• Carson, IN STRUGGLE, Epilogue

Film: EYES, series 2 (part 8) ("Back to the Movement")

Final Exam: Friday, Dec. 12 (8:00-11:00 am)

The course is about using imaginative or 'creative' means in writing, especially about communities. Class members should write between 25 and 30 pages of either fiction or nonfiction during the quarter. (Dramatic writing, including film scripts, is OK, but the instructor has serious limitations concerning verse, which he appreciates but doesn't write and therefore doesn't feel able to counsel poets about.) Most class sessions will deal with students' writing in a workshop-discussion format; a few times we may read and talk about work by "known" writers.

This class may be repeated for credit with the consent of the instructor. (It has been offered in Summer Session fairly recently, but with another teacher, and in Winter, 1998 by my esteemed colleague Roz Spafford.)

In addition to attentive attendance, students will be asked to submit their written work at regular intervals, and to meet with the instructor to discuss their work.

More: 'Imaginative' writing here means the kind that provides the audience with a sense of being present, of living in the world conjured by the work. We expect such an experience when we read fiction, and we sometimes also get it from nonfiction. In either case, though the result apears 'only' descriptive and non-analytic, conscious choices go into the construction of the writing. By decisions, writers structure a view of the world, generate involvement which deepens the reader's understanding.

Two major problems confront the constructor of any imaginative description of reality: First, the need to learn the whole range of techniques for making the reader feel "present" in the imagined world; and second, the difficulty of mediating between cultural logics, those of his/her subjects and those of her/his audience. This course offers a chance to gain experience with various writing techniques, and to become familiar with the assumptions behind 'creative' methods of description.

Instructor: Carter Wilson, College 8 room 211; 459-4405; 459-3516 messages

CURRENT (Spring 1998) office hours: Monday 1 - 3; Wednesday 1:30 - 3:30 4-5; Thursday 12:30-1:45

Revised 7/19/04.