Words Matter,
Race Matters.
In the Department of English at Georgia College, we know that words matter—as we read, as we write, as we live our lives. But we also know that words are spoken and shared in a world where racial injustices cause unspeakable harm—race matters. As our nation faces the continued effects of systemic racism and racist violence, we stand in solidarity with those who know these traumas all too well and with the movement to end racial exclusion and to dismantle systems of oppression. We are committed to pursuing equality and inclusivity for all peoples, perspectives, and experiences, not only in our words and actions but in our reading, writing, and teaching.
Words Matter,
Race Matters.
In order to foster diverse engagement with recent events and their contexts, we as English faculty have compiled profiles of texts that we find powerful for understanding and working through this historical moment. We also include a list of courses that we will offer this year that tackle issues of race and racism and an extended bibliography for further engagement with these issues. We share these resources as a way for us to remember our national legacy of racial violence, to listen to perspectives that have experienced this violence, and to recommit to furthering conversations around racial violence in our courses, visiting lectures, and student groups in person and virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bamboozled
directed by Spike Lee
“This spiky millennial satire of stereotypical representations of African-Americans in American media depicts the historical evolution of the minstrel show and indicts the culture industry.”
— Alex Blazer
Dr. Blazer’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid
“Illuminating and highly relevant, Such a Fun Age authentically explores race, class, and white privilege (as well as white wokeness) in the aftermath of the opening scene, wherein twenty-five year old babysitter Emira Tucker is racially profiled in a Philadelphia grocery store. The characters are rich and complex, the plot has more than a couple twists, and the language is dynamic and filled with life and insight.”
— Caleb Bouchard
dark // thing: poems
by Ashley M. Jones
“Ashley M. Jones explores the experience of living as a Black woman by utilizing sensory embodiment, historical perspectives, and nuanced stanza structures paired with cultural iconography in order to praise the majesty of Black womanhood, which has struggled and triumphed against both past and present injustices.”
— Paul Bryant
The Intuitionist
by Colson Whitehead
“This novel is an amazing work of speculative fiction. What I love about Whitehead’s debut (1999) novel is the way that he uses elevators as a metaphor for upward mobility, as well as highlighting Jim Crow policies in an alternative reality.”
— Jordan Cofer
The Tradition
by Jericho Brown
“Brown’s latest, Pulitzer Prize-winning collection investigates and interrogates ‘the tradition’ of systemic and institutional racism as it manifests—in its various forms—throughout American society. One of the arguments to be found in The Tradition is that in order to quit repeating the cycle of violence toward Black lives, current systems and institutions must be reimagined that specifically address the needs of underrepresented communities, including communities of color and the LGBTQIA+ community. Brown seeks to do just this by reimagining several traditional forms with the invention of a new form called the duplex—one that combines elements of the sonnet, the ghazal, and call and response blues structures. There are several duplexes in the book, and they serve as a reminder that poetry is a living, breathing tradition whose center is not fixed in any sole tradition, but is ever-present and fluid.”
— Kerry James Evans
Dr. Evans’ courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
Harlem Duet
by Djanet Sears
“Set in three different eras of American history, Harlem Duet is a revision of Shakespeare’s Othello that centers a new character: Billie, Othello’s first wife. Sears’ play is a study in African-American history, systemic racism, and intersectional feminism. I love teaching this text in my Modern Drama course.”
— Jennifer Flaherty
The Street
by Ann Petry
“This 1946 novel tells the haunting story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman battling what we now call systemic racism as she tries to raise her son in 1940s Harlem. The entire atmosphere, even the wind on the street, is poisoned.”
— Bruce Gentry
Dr. Gentry’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
Signs Preceding the
End of the World
by Yuri Herrera
“2009 novel by a Mexican novelist currently teaching at Tulane (I believe), which tropes the young female protagonist’s crossing the border into the United States as a journey into the Aztec underworld. A poetic and eminently readable antidote to tired/reductive border-crossing tropes propagated by American mass-media and such books as American Dirt. In the best scene of the novel, Makina confronts a sadistic police officer with the following words: ‘We are to blame for this destruction, we who don’t speak your tongue and don’t know how to keep quiet either. We who didn’t come by boat, who dirty up your doorsteps with our dust, who break your barbed wire. We who came to take your jobs, who dream of wiping your shit, who long to work all hours. We who fill your shiny clean streets with the smell of food, who brought you violence you’d never known, who deliver your dope, who deserve to be chained by neck and feet. We who are happy to die for you, what else could we do? We, the ones who are waiting for who knows what. We, the dark, the short, the greasy, the shifty, the fat, the anemic. We the barbarians.’”
— Julian Knox
Dr. Knox’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
Another Country
by James Baldwin
“This groundbreaking (1962) novel changed my life when I read it (on my own, not assigned) in college (late 70’s). A good reminder that issues of race and identity are not new, and that Baldwin was a writer who confronted those issues more than half a century ago.”
— Martin Lammon
How We Fight For Our Lives
by Saeed Jones
“In How We Fight For Our Lives, Saeed Jones tells his story of navigating his sexuality as an out, queer Black man and the fears that come with it. Jones faces his traumas of homophobia, racism, and toxic masculinity head on through emotional scenes and honest recollection. *Check out his poems, too! He has also written personal essay contributions to GQ in relation to recent protests and police brutality.*”
— Charlotte Lauer
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
“I chose this novel for an Honors Program book discussion last year because on an aesthetic level, it features the hook of a magical-realist adventure plot. However, with the text using The Underground Railroad as a continental subway, it suggests that the Antebellum Period permanently runs below the surface of our everyday interactions.”
— Jeffrey H. MacLachlan
Professor MacLachlan’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
Love Medicine, The Round House,
The Night Watchman,
& all of the work of Louise Erdrich
“Erdrich’s books follow the lives of various interconnected Ojibwe families living on fictional reservations in Minnesota and North Dakota. The three novels recommended particularly address issues of discrimination and social justice, including treaty rights, violence against women, and more. Love Medicine follows various characters dealing with daily life on the reservation (mostly in the 80s). The Round House has a 14 year old boy whose mother is raped on the reservation by a white man. He tries to help his mother (devastated by the attack) and family to find justice. It is part of Erdrich’s “Justice Trilogy.” The Night Watchman is inspired by Erdrich’s grandfather and his fight to preserve his people’s treaty rights on the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota in the 1950s.”
— Mary Magoulick
Dr. Magoulick’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
The Men We Reaped
by Jesmyn Ward
“This memoir is about the lives of five young African American men she knew well, including her own brother, each of whom died young. One was a suicide; the others were lost to drugs or accidents. It’s also about the author’s gradual escape from the world she was born into, about how she was the only black girl in a private school, her tuition paid by one of her mother’s employers. I teach this memoir in my Creative Nonfiction workshops, and without fail, my students say it is a transformative read in how it helps us understand the legacy of slavery in the South, and its continued impact on our justice, education, and political systems.”
— Kerry Neville
“A Small Needful Fact”
by Ross Gay
“A student shared this poem with me, and I think it speaks for itself. You can read it
here: https://poets.org/poem/small-needful-fact
— Laura Newbern
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature
by J. Drew Lanham
“The “home place” of the book’s title is in not-too-distant Edgefield County, South Carolina—two hours’ drive from Milledgeville. A wildlife ecologist at Clemson, Lanham has written a meditation on family, history, place, and identity that is mesmerizingly beautiful and evocative—and also suffused throughout by a most profound ethics of interconnection.
— Matthew Pangborn
The Parable of the Sower
by Octavia Butler
“If you’re going to have any course about dystopian fiction, science fiction, or environmentalist fiction, Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower is a must have in your reading list. Butler was fundamental to shaping our conception of dystopia and post-apocalypse.”
— Kelley Piggott
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
directed by RaMell Ross
“In this unconventional documentary, RaMell Ross seeks to express personal experiences and aesthetic sensations, the lived moments within Black communities in rural Hale County, Alabama. Hale County, named to honor a Confederate officer, has long been a site for documentary images of white poverty—Walker Evans photographed white sharecroppers here in 1936, and William Christenberry built a body of artistic work on his images of the county’s abandoned architecture. Ross critiques the exclusivity and presumed objectivity of this historical perspective as he lets his camera live—see, listen, wander, pause—in the realities of Black families and friends.”
— Lauren Pilcher
Dr. Pilcher’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
“I Have a Dream” speech
by Martin Luther King, Jr.
“One of the most celebrated speeches in American history, it was the centerpiece of the 1963 ‘March on Washington.’ King delivered the speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a peaceful crowd of 250,000 people of all races. In the speech King said his dream is deeply rooted in the American dream, that ‘my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’ You see, he understood that no one, regardless of race, should be judged by the color of their skin. King’s speech and philosophy of non-violent protest led directly to the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s. His speech is also a rhetorical masterpiece.”
— Bill Richards
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
by Machado de Assis
“Novelist, poet, playwright, story writer, and overall man-of-letters, Machado de Assis is regarded by many as the greatest writer of Brazilian literature of his era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machado_de_Assis)”
— Peter Selgin
Bad Feminist
by Roxane Gay
“I love introducing students to intersectional feminism through this collection of essays. Gay approaches issues around race and gender through readings of pop culture icons like The Hunger Games and Chris Brown. She uses a balance of dark humor, empathy, and scathing social critique for the perfect nonrequired, essential summer reading.”
— Stefanie Sevcik
Dr. Sevcik’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
Are Prisons Obsolete?
by Angela Davis
“Davis invites us to consider the human rights catastrophe of the modern prison system, and argues that the contemporary U.S. prison-industrial complex is more akin to neo slavery than it is a mode of criminal justice. This book changed the way I think, and asks us all to consider the criminalization of communities of color, the disenfranchisement of minority voters, and how corporations profit from a contemporary system of captive, unpaid labor. (Regularly taught in my GC2Y Captivity and Freedom course).”
— Katie Simon
Dr. Simon’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
(Fall ‘20)
(Fall ‘20)
So You Want to Talk About Race
by Ijeoma Oluo
“Oluo’s writing is smart, intimate and accessible, and this book discusses race and racism in contemporary America, while offering useful tips for understanding and discussing/fighting all the different systems of oppression. She uses her experiences as an African American to frame some of the discussions and to illustrates how oppressive systems intersect.”
— Chika Unigwe
Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
“Part coming-of-age story, part subversion of the American road novel, Ward’s treatment of the complex narratives around race, addiction, and the criminal justice system in the rural south makes this novel relevant and timely. But my favorite thing about it is the 12-year-old narrator, Jojo. Black boys are so rarely represented as children, Ward’s tender portrayal of Jojo as a compassionate kid who fiercely loves his sister and his grandparents grabbed me from the first page.
— Jennifer West
Dr. West’s courses that address issues related to racism and inequality in America & around the world:
Further Reading
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
Anderson, Carol. White Rage.
Arimah, Lesley Nneka. What It Means When A Man Falls From the Sky.
Atta, Dean. The Black Flamingo.
Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time.
Bennett, Brit, The Vanishing Half.
Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War. to World War II.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Maud Martha.
Callender, Kacen. This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me.
Colbert, Brandy. Little & Lion.
Danticat, Edwidge. Everything Inside: Stories; Breath, Eyes, Memory.
Daye, Tyree. Cardinal.
Further Reading
Derricotte, Toi. I: New and Selected Poems; The Black Notebooks
DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility.
Dunn, Steven. Potted Meat.
Edim, Glory. Well-Read Black Girl.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man.
Erdrich, Louise. Tracks; The Painted Drum.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks.
Finney, Nikky. Head Off & Split.
Gay, Roxane. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.
Gyasi, Yaa. Homegoing.
Harjo, Joy. Sunrise; She Had Some Horses; and Crazy Brave.
Hayden, Robert. Angle of Ascent: New & Selected Poems.
Hayes, Terrance. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
Hill, Sean. Blood Ties & Brown Liquor; Dangerous Goods (FROM MILLEDGEVILLE!)
Further Reading
hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress.
Jackson, Major. The Absurd Man; Roll Deep; Holding Company; Hoops; Leaving Saturn.
James, Marlon. A Brief History of Seven Killings.
Jemisin, N.K. The Broken Earth trilogy, 1) The Fifth Season (2015), 2) The Obelisk Gate (2016), 3) The Stone Sky (2017)
Johnson, George, All Boys Aren’t Blue.
Johnson, Mat. Loving Day.
Joseph, Allison. Confessions of a Bare-faced Woman.
Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Anti-Racist.
King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories and The Inconvenient Indian: a curious account of native people in North America; also a short film he directed: I’m Not the Indian You Had in Mind (2007)
Laymon, Kiese. Heavy: An American Memoir.
McBride, James. The Good Lord Bird; Deacon King Kong.
McKinney, LL. A Blade So Black.
Further Reading
Moore, Darnell. No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America.
Morrison, Toni, Beloved; Paradise; A Mercy; Playing in the Dark.
Nelson, Marilyn. My Seneca Village; How I Discovered Poetry,; Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2011.
Oriogun, Romeo. The Origin of Butterflies (Appearing in our 2020-2021 Visiting Writers Series)
Oshiro, Mark. Anger Is a Gift.
Oyeyemi, Helen. What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours.
Packer, ZZ. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.
Petrosino, Kiki. White Blood.
Petrus, Junauda. The Stars and the Blackness Between Them.
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric.
Reeves, Roger. King Me.
Sharpe, Christina. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being.
Further Reading
Silko, Leslie, Ceremony (1977); Gardens in the Dunes (2000).
Smith, Danez. Don’t Call Us Dead.
Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (2008)
Taylor, Brandon. Real Life.
Trethewey, Natasha. Native Guard.
Unigwe, Chika. Better Late Than Never; Night Dancer; On Black Sisters' Street (GCSU Faculty!).
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple; Possessing the Secret of Joy
Ward, Jesmyn, ed. The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race.
Ward, Jesmyn. Salvage the Bones. (2 Time National Book Award Winner)
Washington, Bryan. Lot: Stories.
Wideman. John Edgar. Brothers and Keepers; Philadelphia Fire.
Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns.
Woodson, Jacqueline. Red at the Bone; Another Brooklyn; Brown Girl Dreaming.