Training in writing expository prose. Further instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

In this course we will study Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man, widely considered a monumental achievement of American literature. This critical esteem is due, in part, to the novel’s engagement with big ideas. It is a text in which the anonymous narrator (as well as the reader) is shown how concepts that we seem to intuitively understand—concepts such as history, race, and freedom—first evade our attempts to define them and then turn out to be other than as they appear. We will examine how Invisible Man performs this ironic work, and how in doing so the novel tests the boundaries of realism. But perhaps the most pointed irony of the novel is that “invisibility” quickly emerges not as a physical condition of the kind in H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, but rather as a description of the challenge to seeing, and therefore representing, black Americans. We will study how Ellison’s novel works through this challenge in multiple registers. On the one hand, it gathers and absorbs a range of uniquely American forms, such as African American folk tales, blues and spirituals, slave narratives, and minstrelsy. On the other hand, Ellison’s work navigates the terrain of American intellectual history and the debates in sociology, psychology, political theory, and philosophy that bear on questions of race, labor, and the unrealized ideal of American democracy. We will therefore read, in addition to the novel, many examples of these formal, intellectual, and historical borrowings in the interest of examining how Ellison weaves them together and pulls them apart. Over the course of the semester, students will generate and revise research papers that engage with some of the novel’s key topics of concern. In the process, we will cultivate our skills of writing and reading analytically, argumentation, research, and source evaluation. Attention will also be given to the general application of these skills beyond the scope of our course materials.

Book List:

Ellison, Ralph: Invisible Man

Requisites

• Previously passed an R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature and Composition. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills