Sociology 307: African-American Social Thought             
Fall 2002
Dr. Scott Schaffer

Class Meetings: Mon/Wed/Fri 12pm to 1250pm, McComsey 113
Office: Susquehanna House 105   Phone: 717/872.3567         Fax: 717/872.3942
Office Hours: Mon/Wed/Fri 1pm to 150pm, T/Th 1130am to 1230pm OBA

Course web site: http://www.millersville.edu/~schaffer/courses/f2002/soc307

Email: scott.schaffer@millersville.edu

Course Description:

This course is designed to serve as an exploration of the history of African-American social thought since the establishment of the American Republic. As most of you know (and the rest will find out soon enough), one of the major criticisms of the history -- and the present -- of the United States is its entrenched institutional racism, which appears in a number of guises, ranging from slavery and segregation in the past, to discrimination and hate crimes in the present. Much of African-American social thought represents different attempts to grapple with the fact of American institutional racism and its changing face, and the diversity of viewpoints and perspectives we will encounter here will reflect the diverse manifestations of this racism.

There will be a variety of ways in which we will embark on this exploration. The first, of course, is to examine those texts that could be called "social theory" that have been written by African-Americans, and most classes might go no further. Given the history of African-Americans in the US, though, this would be a nearly impossible task; African-American sociology did not appear as sociology until the late 1890s and early 1900s, which would leave nearly 120 years of this field unexamined. Because of this, we will explore theoretically motivated writings by African-Americans, and in particular, we will look at the relationships between these theoretical writings and the different social movements that arose to counter American institutional racism.

This class represents a kind of "social theory from below" -- an examination of the development of theoretical understandings of the world from a subaltern or subordinate position in the world. The course has two fundamental premises, with which your continued attendance in the course represents an agreement: first, that institutional racism, in a variety of guises, and requires a variety of responses in both social-theoretical and practical ways; and second, that the experiences and insights of the people on the short end of the American stick are as instructive as those of dominant groups in our society. Given these premises, this course is dedicated not to whether or not these theorists and participants in social movements are "right" or "wrong" in some kind of objective sense, but instead is dedicated to understanding the importance of changing the American social structure to bring about new forms of social justice, and to understanding the relationship between social theory and social praxis.

On occasion, this course may be difficult for some of you, either because of the intensity of the readings, what the readings say about your understanding of American society in the past or present, or because of the discussions that may occur in class. However, I firmly believe that your continued participation in and dedication to this course will benefit all of us. America's history still plays out today, and we help play it out -- better to understand that as best we can than to ignore the state of affairs today.

Course Texts:

The following seven texts are required, and are available at the University Bookstore, or online through major resellers such as barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com.

Birnbaum and Taylor, eds., Civil Rights Since 1787: A Reader on the Black Struggle (abbreviated CR)
Turner, Confessions of Nat Turner
Douglass and Jacobs, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (abbreviated NL/IL)
Washington, Up From Slavery
DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
Van Deburg (ed.), Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan (abbreviated MBN)
Washington (ed.), A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (abbreviated TH)

Course Assignments: There are four types of assignments for this course. Successful and timely completion of all are critical to your success in the course.

Papers: There are three papers required for this course. The first two will ask you to compare and analyze a certain number of the required readings for the course, and will be due in the sixth and eleventh weeks respectively. The final paper, which will require you to pursue outside research and develop an argument-based thesis, will be due in the final exam session for the course. Pay careful attention to the discussion below regarding papers and to the "How to Write a Schaffer Paper" handout (available on the class web site) -- it contains everything you need to know about my expectations for your written work in the course.

Discussion Questions: In the second class session, you will join a three-person discussion group, that will serve as both a site for discussing the weekly questions that are intended to guide you through the readings and as a moral support group for your journey through this course. The questions will be handed out in advance of each week's reading. These questions will serve as the basis for the in-class discussion we will have each Friday. As you'll notice in the reading schedule, Mondays and Wednesdays are dedicated to lecturing about the readings assigned for the week, while Fridays will be devoted to discussing your responses to the discussion questions. You should meet with your group prior to that session, having prepared responses (with page citations, etc.) to those questions, and you should come to the Friday sessions prepared to talk about the readings.

Reading Journals: You will be asked to keep a journal throughout this course. How you use the journal in conjunction with the course is up to you; it is intended to provide you with another space in which you can deal with the issues that appear during the course. You will be asked to submit your journal twice during the semester -- once with the second paper, and again with the final paper. I do read the journals, so you know. They will be evaluated on a pass/fail basis -- you do at least an entry each week, you pass. You don't...

Class Participation: This class is not about me lecturing on the readings assigned, and you should not expect that my lectures will replace your diligent pursuit of the readings or vice versa. Your attendance in my class is mandatory, and you must be prepared for each class session. On some days, your attendance will constitute your participation in the class; on others, such as the Friday sessions, participation will be based on how constructively you contribute to the class discussion on the discussion questions and any other relevant topics. In general, my evaluation of your participation deals with this question: How committed does this person appear to be to their success in the course? Your response to that question and how you act on it will be influential and crucial for your success in the course.

Important Note: I reserve the right to give a pop quiz at any time to ensure that you're keeping up with the readings. Any time I give a pop quiz, it will be graded on a letter-grade basis and will count as the equivalent of a journal submission (so 2.5% of your grade). There are no makeup quizzes; if you're not there the day it happens, you receive a zero (0) for that quiz save in the event of an excused absence.

Grade Breakdown: Grades for this course will be letter grades with +/- modifiers, save for the journals, which are pass/fail (A or F). You cannot pass the course without submitting all paper assignments and the journals.

First Paper: 10%
Second Paper: 20%
Term Project: 40%
Journals: 5%
Class Participation/Discussion: 25%

Attendance, Timeliness, Presentation, and Academic Dishonesty Policies:

Attendance: The materials here are difficult, and class sessions are designed to help you gain a greater facility in reading social-theoretical texts. Hence, this course can only be fully and successfully completed if you attend every class session having read the materials in advance. My general policy regarding attendance is this: If you're there, great -- I'm happy to see you; if you're not, that was your call to make. It is in your best interest to attend every session prepared to discuss the materials at hand; lecture notes do not necessarily good thoughts make...

Timeliness: As you know, the tempo of the semester system does not allow one to fall behind, and everything in this course builds to the final research paper. As such, you are requested and required to submit all assignments on the time and date announced. Except in the case of a severe, catastrophic, and well-documented misfortune that befalls you (such as your departure from this mortal coil), no late papers will be accepted; in the event of a catastrophe, you must contact me by phone or e-mail as early as possible. Papers must be submitted to the instructor in person at the time and date due, to the Sociology Department office prior to the deadline, or by e-mail to me before the deadline.

Presentation: The research papers you will undertake in this course represent a significant portion of your time this quarter and are intended to get you to think about the nature of the society in which you find yourselves. The expectation is that you will pursue these assignments with vigor and a clear intent to do well in the development of your analytic and critical thinking skills. As such, you are required to proofread and spell- and grammar-check all work submitted during this course. There is no excuse for submitting shoddy work in a time when any decent word processing program can polish your work. Any paper submitted with copious errors will automatically lose two full letter grades (with no appeal), and may be returned for editing. If a second paper is submitted without being proofread, that paper -- and any future unproofed paper -- will automatically receive a zero (0).

Academic Dishonesty: Absolutely NO form of academic dishonesty (defined as the use of prohibited materials during an examination, any kind of communication with another person other than the professor or an exam proctor during an examination, the representation of another's work as your own whether that work was purchased or freely offered) will be tolerated in this course. As it is contrary to both the mission of the university and to MU policies, any act of academic dishonesty will be met with an immediate failure on the assignment at minimum, and failure in the course and referral to Student Affairs for judicial board proceedings at most. Just don't even think about it -- it robs us all of the learning experience.

Lecture and Reading Schedule: Please note that you are expected to have completed the readings listed for each class session on the day they are listed. I reserve the right to give a pop quiz in class at any time, and pop quizzes will be on the readings listed as below.

Week 1: Introduction to the Course

M Aug 26: Introduction to the course: Mechanics
W Aug 28: Introduction to the course: Themes
F Aug 30: CR, pp. 1-6; Young and Deskins, "Early Traditions in African-American Sociological Thought" (available on the course web site)

Weeks 2-4: Slavery and Freedom

M Sep 2: No class -- Labour Day. Be safe, eh?
W Sep 4: Turner, pp. 1-58
F Sep 6: Turner, pp. 59-131

M Sep 9: CR, pp. 7-49
W Sep 11: Douglass, NL/IL pp. 1-63
F Sep 13: Douglass, NL/IL pp. 64-113

M Sep 16: CR, pp. 50-100
W Sep 18: Jacobs, NL/IL pp. 115-238
F Sep 20: First paper handed out and discussed; Jacobs, NL/IL pp. 239-297

Weeks 5-6: The Reconstruction Era

M Sep 23: CR, pp. 101-126
W Sep 25: Jacobs, NL/IL pp. 298-354
F Sep 27: Truth, materials on eReserve

M Sep 30: CR, pp. 127-160
W Oct 2: Paper prep session -- no reading
F Oct 4: First paper DUE at the start of class

Weeks 7-9: Segregation and the Progressive Response

M Oct 7: No class -- Fall Recess.
W Oct 9: CR, pp. 161-214
F Oct 11: Washington, all

M Oct 14: Second paper handed out and discussed; CR, pp. 215-267, and DuBois, Introduction
W Oct 16: DuBois, pp. 1-110
F Oct 18: DuBois, pp. 111-218

M Oct 21: CR, pp. 268-277, 283-286, 290-297, 303-308, 315-325 (recommended: pp. 278-282, 287-289, 298-302, 309-314)
W Oct 23: MBN, pp.23-77
F Oct 25: Paper prep session -- no reading

Weeks 10-12: The Second Reconstruction -- The 1960s Civil Rights Movement

At this point in the course, we will move from a "Friday only" discussion format to having in-class discussion in each class session. Please make sure that you are prepared to discuss the materials on the day they are listed.

M Oct 28: Second paper and journals DUE at the start of class; Term project handed out and discussed; CR, pp. 327-363
W Oct 30: CR, pp. 363-382, 388-395, 412-415, 421-427 (recommended: pp. 383-387, 396-411, 416-420, 428-434)
F Nov 1: CR, pp. 435-442, 457-460, 467-489 (recommended: pp. 443-456, 461-466)

M Nov 4: CR, pp. 490-492, 511-520, 524-538, 546-552 (recommended: pp. 492-510, 521-523, 539-545); TH, pp. 31-34, 41-61, 75-90, 112-134
W Nov 6: CR, pp. 553-564, 574-580, 604-610, 618-630 (recommended: pp. 565-573, 581-603, 611-617); TH, pp. 145-151, 160-168, 176-181,
197-207, 245-252, 268-278
F Nov 8: TH, pp. 289-312, 417-490, 518-554, 634-656

M Nov 11: CR, pp. 631-678
W Nov 13: CR, pp. 678-716
F Nov 15: MBN, pp. 78-118

Weeks 13-14: The Backlash Against Civil Rights

M Nov 18: CR, pp. 717-758
W Nov 20: CR, pp. 780-802, 805-816, 819-830 (recommended: pp. 779, 803-804, 831-842)
F Nov 22: MBN, pp. 119-196

M Nov 25: MBN, pp. 197-274
W/F Nov 27/29: Thanksgiving Recess -- be safe, eh?

Weeks 14-15: Institutionalized Racism and You: Defining and Acting Toward Social Justice

M Dec 2: CR, pp. 843-873
W Dec 4: CR, pp. 874-908
F Dec 6: MBN, pp. 275-327

M Dec 9: MBN, pp. 328-374

Th Dec 12, 1230pm to 230pm: Term project and journals DUE in the final exam session; mandatory closure discussion

 

Summing Up -- Due Dates

Every Friday -- Discussion questions for in-class discussion

Fri Oct 4/2002 -- First paper due

Mon Nov 4/2002 -- Second paper and journals due

Th Dec 12/2002, 1230pm -- Term project and journals due

 

Journal Assignment

The purpose of the journal is to help you do a number of things:

Beyond this, what you do with the journal is up to you. You can use it for taking notes on the readings, musing about your life, discussing your responses to the course or to me -- anything. It is, strictly speaking, your space, so please feel free to write what you want in whatever manner you want.

Over the years, I've found that the following usage works best for students in attaining all of the goals of this course:

1. Write in your journal after each class session. This way, the ideas and issues discussed in class are fresh in your mind, and I've found that it's easier to integrate new ideas into your existing way of thinking if you try to work it out immediately after you've learned the stuff.

2. Keep in mind the goals of the course and the purpose of the journal. I'm not expecting this to be a "Dear Diary" sort of experience for you (though discussing events and goings-on in your personal life is perfectly acceptable to me). Rather, the journal is designed to help you further your sociological and analytic abilities, and as such, writing up each day's entry to focus on that day's class material will help you retain it, understand it, and give you an opportunity to see how it relates to your everyday existence.

3. Don't fall behind. I'll know it. And since this is intended to help you deepen your understanding of social life, falling behind will have an impact on your work in other areas of the course, most especially the papers.

Evaluation: Your journals will be evaluated on the following criteria:

As with most everything else, a sincere effort will ensure that you do well on this segment of the course assignments, which will end up benefiting you on your other assignments as well.

These journals will be collected twice -- one with the second paper (on T Oct 22), and again with the submission of the final paper -- and each collection date counts as 50% of your journals grade. Failing to submit the first time will result in a 0 for that half, regardless of whether or not the entries appear on the second submission. No late journals will be accepted.

Discussion Question Assignment

The discussion questions are an integral part of this course. They serve a number of purposes:

In the second class session, we'll set up discussion groups of three people (four is acceptable). Your task during that session is to exchange phone numbers and email addresses and to figure out a time where you can meet to discuss the questions on a weekly basis. It doesn't matter to me if this meeting is on campus, off-campus, or by email or telephone (hence the three people -- three-way calling). You need to be sure to find a time that is generally acceptable to all of you. The purpose of these questions is to prepare you for the class discussion on Thursdays - dedicate yourself to preparing these questions and everything will be just fine.

You should note that the questions are "cumulative," so that the last question in each set builds on all the questions that come before it. Hence, skipping questions or splitting the questions into blocks that one person prepares does not help you in the long run -- paper questions are more like the last question in each set than any of the others.

Every Friday, we will devote the class period to discussing your responses to the discussion questions. It is incumbent on you to ensure that you are prepared for that discussion by having already met with your discussion group, discussed the questions, and prepared notes for your in-class discussion of these materials. Your class participation grade will be based primarily on what happens in these discussions, and as the semester goes on, I will increasingly rely on you to manage and spark these discussions. At any time, should I find that discussion is not happening in the way that it should be, I will be most displeased. You do not want to see that.

Disputes within groups: If a dispute occurs within a group -- someone keeps skipping group and expecting the answers to the questions, or some other kind of internal problem appears -- the group members should take care of it collectively. If it cannot be resolved internally, it is expected that you will come to me to resolve the situation, though I prefer not to get involved in this way. We're all adults -- we can manage our own affairs.

Paper Evaluation Guidelines

More information on these guidelines and examples of what I expect is available in the "How to Write a Schaffer Paper" handout, which will be given out with the first paper assignment. These, though, are the overall guidelines in order of importance.

1. Strength and clarity of response to the paper topic's main question. Each paper assignment will ask you to respond directly to an argumentative question, and you should ensure that your paper contains a direct and clear response to this question.

2. Strength and cohesiveness of the argument. The papers you will write in this class are argument-based -- it isn't enough to deliver a simple one-sentence statement that answers the question. Instead, you need to take the time to show me how it is you came to that response -- the thought process you went through, the references you drew from in order to figure out your position, and how you put everything together. In algebra, it was called "showing your steps"; here, it's just good argumentation.

3. Accuracy in presentation and understanding of materials. While most of this course is devoted to the development of your own perspective on these thinkers and the world, there are some minimum "correct" and "incorrect" understandings of what the authors said. You need to be sure that you accurately represent what each author says, that you accurately and adequately cite any reference to the original text(s), and that you explain any unorthodox presentation of the authors' works.

4. Presentation -- spelling, grammar, tone, and the actual submitted paper. As it's become ridiculously easy to ensure that your work is cleanly presented, you must ensure that your paper is spell- and grammar-checked prior to submitting it for evaluation. You should also endeavor to ensure that it's proofread, either by you, a discussion group member, or someone else -- and this proofreading should be both for the technical matters and for clarity of argument. Otherwize, you're paper will appeer bad, even iff its the most briliant thing ever writen.

Deductions: The following are automatic deductions without appeal:

Also, note that I grade on a letter grade with +/- additions, so there should be no dallying around with the math.

In general, grades on papers indicate the following (and note that failing to meet these criteria will generally result in a failing grade):