Cultural Reporting: Narrating Race                                                Intersession 2008

Bellarmine 215          

January 2nd – January 12th

 

Facilitator:      John Lavin, Ed.D.

                        lavin@sju.edu

                        610-724-1404 (Cell)

 

 

Course Expectations

Those who report society’s crises have the opportunity to integrate literary elements into their narrative of witness. Photographing a massacre, interviewing a fugitive, composing prose to explain a conflicted court’s ruling are artistic occasions that demand sensitivity to what is graceful. The more controversial the story, the more its composers will need to refine their aesthetic judgment. Telling the tale of people who have suffered will engage the writer in a series of stark decisions that are predicated upon a single question: how to render damaged human beings with dignity. The sensationalizing media simply discards this issue of dignity in order to “get the story”; however, the cultural reporter permits herself or himself to draw upon the novelist’s, the painter’s and the ethicist’s sense for language, image and logic to humanize the hurt, the chaos and the confusion occasioned by pain and  difficulty.

 

Our course devotes its attention to a selection of photojournalists whose writings exploit the artistic elements of fiction, painting, poetry and drama. Furthermore, the texts for our class, in many cases, have either become or were inspired by literary works.

 

Pre-Course Student Responsibilities

Students must do one of the following activities prior to the commencement of the course on January 2, 2008: 1) Watch Spike Lee’s documentary film, Four Little Girls;

2) Examine the photos of Sebastiao Salgado at www.terra.com.br/sebastiaosalgado;

3) Visit the Balzac Room of the Rodin Museum, 2201 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia. After completing one of the aforementioned tasks, students will compose a single journal account answering both of the following questions: How did the experience affect your understanding of the concept of accuracy? How did the experience affect your feelings?

 

Course Goals

Our course will instill students with an appreciation of the following sensibilities:

 

·       Students will become aware of distinctions between media that produce  propaganda and media that develop educational texts.

·       Students will assume a critical understanding of communication methods for documenting sources and designing narratives that mediate human rights crises.

·       Students will participate in a controversy by composing a text that responds to one of the ethical issues raised for consideration in our class.

Course Goals (Cont’d)

·       Students will comprehend the relationship between journaling (assiduously writing in a journal) and journalism (that form of realism in which events of the day are accurately reported within 24 hours.

·       Students will be able to explain the relationship between advocacy and journalism, and moreover, to perform the role of advocate.

 

Texts:             (Excerpts from the following texts will be available in class.)

Honore Balzac. The Human Comedy.

                        Spike Lee. Four Little Girls.

Toni Morrison. Race-Ing Justice, En-gendering Power:

Essays On Anita Hill.

                        Sebastiao Salgado. Terra.

                        Miguel Pinero. Short Eyes.   

                        Cornell West. Race Matters.

 

Introduction

While the topic of Cultural Reporting describes the methods, genres and skills targeted by our course, the texts to focus our investigations will originate in the traditions of realism that produce social commentary. More specifically, much of our course will devote its attention to African-American literary traditions that have both led and influenced journalism devoted to basic rights and freedoms crucial to a civil society.

 

Assignments

Students will compose a journal (with a minimum of 10 entries by January 14, 2008) and compose a guided research essay of  8-to-10 pages (due on January 21, 2008). Each meeting of  the studnts will receive prompts to elicit journal writing. The research paper will be based upon one of the student’s journal entries and will enlarge upon the insight generated  journal writing.

 

Grading

 

Course Participation               25%

 

Journal                                                50%

 

Research Essay                       25%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week One

Monday           Honore Balzac. The Human Comedy.

Students to examine social setting and methods of short fiction and non-fiction.

 

Spike Lee. Four Little Girls.

Students watch and reflect upon Spike Lee’s use of the interview: the artistry of dialogue.

 

Tuesday          Coverage of the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court Appointment Hearings.

Toni Morrison. Race-Ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays On Anita Hill.

                       

Wednesday     Reflection upon selections from Cornell West’s Race Matters.

 

Thursday         Showing and dialogue with Sebastiao Salgado’s Terra.

 

 

Friday             Viewing of film, Pinero.       

 

 

Saturday          Miguel Pinero. Short Eyes.

 

 

 

Week Two

Monday           Philadelphia Images:  W.E.B. DuBois.

 

Tuesday          Philadelphia Images:  John McNamee’s Diary of a City Priest.

 

Wednesday     Philadelphia Images:  Steve Lopez

 

Thursday         Documentary Reportage from DuBois , McNamee & Lopez.

 

Friday             Review and Reflection on 21st Century.

 

Saturday          Reflection on Local Media: Scribe Video Center/Alternative Press, Daily Newspapers. Cultural Centers: Taller Puertorriqueño, N.A.A.C.P. and others.