Special Topics in English Literature and Culture
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Assignment 1. Worksheet on “Race” and Gender in the African-American Context
Assignment 1. Worksheet on “Race” and Gender in the African-American
Context. (10 points; 10%)
Answer the questions directly in the document. Use Times New Roman, Font 11.
Name:
Part 1. Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Answer the
following questions (100-200 words).
1. How do you assess the relationship between the female slave —in this case,
Harriet Jacobs—and her mistress, Mrs. Flint? Could we claim that, albeit in
different forms, they were both “slaves” of patriarchy? What does this tell us
about the institution of slavery?
2. Why do you think that Chapter VII, “The Lover” is crucial for Harriet Jacobs to
lay out her script? What is she attempting to gain with the inclusion of this
chapter? (Remember her strategic use of conventions akin to the sentimental
novel)
3. In the case of Frederick Douglass, literacy was literally his passport to freedom.
Because he was able to write (and read), he could forge a document that testified
that his master had granted him his freedom. Harriet Jacobs is also literate but,
as the chapters that you have read demonstrate, in her case literacy does not
grant her a passport to freedom. Why? What does literacy mean to the young
slave girl, Harriet Jacobs?
Part 2. “Ain’t I A Woman?”(1851), Sojourner Truth. (100-200 words)
Sojourner Truth was an uneducated, ex-slave woman who produced one of the most
powerful speeches regarding the freedom of all women, white and non-white. Read her
speech and explain what simple —but not simplistic—rhetorical device she uses to
make her point. Consider two aspects: (1) what do you make of her constant repetition
“Ain’t I A Woman?” and (2) the biblical reference/explanation she makes at the end of
her speech.
Part 3. Talking Back. ThinkingFeminist. Thinking Black (1989), bell hooks.
bell hooks (in small letters!) is Gloria Jean Watkins’ pen name. A writer, feminist and
social activist, he entered the world of the Academia with a book entitled Ain’t I A
Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), a clear allusion to Sojourner Truth’s
iconic speech. She is undoubtedly one of the leading scholars in African-American
cultural studies.
1. What does the act of “talking back” refer to? Why do you think bell hooks made
it the title of her book? In other words, what has “talking back” come to
represent in her personal and academic development? (Talking Back, 5-9)
2. Why did she choose “bell hooks” as her pseudonym? What does this choice of
pen name reveal? (Talking Back, 5-9)
Special Topics in English Literature and Culture
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Assignment 1. Worksheet on “Race” and Gender in the African-American Context
3. Why is the triad “sex-class-race” so determining in the development of feminist
thinking? (Consider the position of woman as both victim and oppressor)
(Feminism: A Transformational Politic, 19-27)
4. What role does “love” play in revolution? (Feminism: A Transformational
Politic, 19-27)
5. What is bell hooks’s position on analyzing works (as readers and critics) created
by authors that belong to an ethnicity different to ours? Do you share her view?
Have you ever reflected upon such an issue? (Feminist Scholarship: Ethical
Issues, 42-48)
6. In relationship with the question above, what does she mean by “authoritative”
and “definitive”, two adjectives she uses profusely in this chapter on feminist
scholarship and ethics? (Feminist Scholarship: Ethical Issues, 42-48)
7. What are bell hooks’s objections to the term “battered woman”? (Violence in
Intimate Relationships: A Feminist Perspective, 84-91)
8. Why does she question and present romantic love as pernicious to women’s
development? (Violence in Intimate Relationships: A Feminist Perspective, 84-
91)
