ENGL 308/GSJ 307 F22: Race and Resistance
Contact Information
Professor: Dr. Heather Smyth: hsmyth@uwaterloo.ca
Office Hours: Wednesdays 9-10 am in MS Teams (if you prompt me with a message in Teams I'll answer with a video or phone call)
Territorial Acknowledgement
I acknowledge that the University of Waterloo is on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. This university is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised and given to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. All of us, learners and instructor, are participating in this online course from different traditional territories. I am a settler living and teaching from Toronto, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and which is now home to many diverse First Nations,
Inuit and Métis peoples. Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. I encourage you to learn the history of the land and traditional peoples where you live and reflect on the mutual responsibilities that we inherit as Treaty people.
Announcements
Welcome to the course! I'm Professor Heather Smyth and I'm looking forward to working with you this term as we learn about and discuss the roles that race and racism play in structures of power and means of resistance.
Our focus will especially be on social justice movements and the affordances and tactics offered by cultural,
artistic, and literary means. Critical race theory and social movement theory will help guide us during the term.
I'll use the Announcements widget on the Course Home page during the term to communicate new or changing information regarding due dates, instructor absence, etc., as needed. You are expected to read the announcements on a regular basis.
To ensure you are viewing the complete list of announcements, you may need to click Show All Announcements.
Discussions
We will meet once a week for about an hour on Mondays (1-2:20 pm) using Microsoft Teams. At that time we will discuss the week's lecture videos and reading material and related topics arising. Those meetings will be videotaped and uploaded to LEARN to ensure access for anyone who could not be at the meeting.
I have provided a General Discussion for class-wide discussions and an Ask the Instructor discussion forum, both in LEARN. Use the Ask the Instructor Forum when you have a question that may benefit the whole class. Also, check this forum to see if your question has already been answered before reaching out to your instructor.
Some of the Ask the Instructor questions will probably be factual things I will reply to right away, but for the more substantive and pondering questions I will raise them in our Wednesday meeting and/or answer them via video.
Say hello to the class by posting in the Introduce Yourself discussion forum. Discussions can be accessed from the Course Home page by clicking Connect and then Discussions on the course navigation bar.
Contact Us
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Who and Why |
Contact Details |
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Instructor Course-related questions (e.g., course content, deadlines, assignments, etc.) Questions of a personal nature |
Post your course-related questions to the Ask the Instructor discussion topic*. This allows other students to benefit from your question as well. Questions of a personal nature can be directed to your instructor. Instructor: Heather Smyth Your instructor checks email and the Ask the Instructor discussion topic* frequently and will make every effort to reply to your questions within 24 hours, Monday to Friday. When emailing the instructor, please indicate the course code in the subject line. |
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Technical Support Technical problems with Waterloo LEARN |
Include your full name, WatIAM user ID, student number, and course name and number. Technical support is available during regular business hours, Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM (Eastern Time). |
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Student Resources |
Academic advice Student success WatCards Library services and more |
*Discussion topics can be accessed by clicking Connect and then Discussions on the course navigation bar above.
Course Description and Learning Outcomes
Course Description
An examination of how contemporary literary and cultural texts represent, reconfigure, and resist ideas of race. Analyzing literature, film, art, popular culture, and social movements, this course covers major debates in critical race theory and anti-racist practices.
Undergraduate Studies Calendar
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Understand some key concepts in critical race theory
- Identify and analyze persuasive strategies used in social movements Critically reflect on their own positionality
- Design and write analyses of various lengths
Grade Breakdown
The following table represents the grade breakdown of this course.
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20% |
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40% |
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10% |
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30% |
Self-Positioning (SP)
During the term you will be writing three Self-Positioning assignments in which you’ll reflect on your personal/political investment in the course topics, how you locate yourself in conversations about race and resistance, and what you want to gain from/give to the class. These will be posted to the SP Discussion forum for sharing with your fellow classmates. They will be due on specific dates (Sep 23, Oct 28, Nov 25) with slightly different prompts so you can revisit what you’ve said at different stages of reflection. After posting your
assignment each time, you will read and offer brief comments on 3 of your classmates’ contributions (pick different classmates each time). 20% of course grade
Foraging
On four occasions during the course (Sep 30, Oct 21, Nov 4, Nov 18) you will search for and identify an ongoing or contemporary (within past 10 years) social justice action not discussed in class that relates to the course theme of “race and resistance” (this can include a range of social movements in which racism and racialization play a role). You will write about 750 words of analysis that you’ll post to the course website to share with the rest of the class. If you prefer to upload a video/audio of yourself offering an analysis of comparable length and
showing visuals, that’s great and you could choose this for up to two of the four assignments. You can use the beautifultrouble.org model and resources to help with your analysis, but do not pick the same actions/events they analyze so that your work is your own. Your analysis should identify the event/occasion, the issues/demands, and the tactics used—consider just focusing on one distinct tactic you find notable. Outline what principles/theories/methodologies you see operating in that example or tactic, how the tactic relates to the cause, and evaluate whether you think it was or would be persuasive (including what audience/s you think would be persuaded, or not). Include an URL for the other students if your event/image is available online. 40% of course grade
Project Interview
You and I will have a 15 minute discussion about your course project ideas so I can hear what your thoughts are and we can problem-solve issues together. Those interviews will be individually scheduled later in term. 10% of final grade
Course Project
There are several approaches you can take in your final project, including:
- Take one of your foraging assignments and expand on it to 8-10 pages doing a full analysis of the tactic/s and principles;
- Take the activism/advocacy event or tactic you discussed in a foraging assignment and compare it with an event/tactic you learn about from another student’s foraging assignment. Do a comparison analysis of tactics, principles, and/or outcomes, 8-10 pages;
- Write an 8-10 page close analysis of the affordances of a specific means of engagement or communication for social justice resistance—for example, protest march, poetry, Twitter campaign, sit-in, street theatre, deputation to city hall, blockade, long march, manifesto, temporary autonomous zone, petition, strike, cacerolazo, hunger strike, flash mob, graffiti, infographic circulation, storytelling etc. etc. etc.
- Create an activism/advocacy event or object and do a reflective analysis of it. Talk with me about this and we’ll figure out together how long a written (or video) analysis seems appropriate.
Got some other ideas? Pitch them to me!
You will have a rough draft prepared in time for a peer group workshop the week of Nov 28-Dec 2 (further details to follow) and the final draft is due Dec 9.
30% of course grade (5 completion points are included for peer workshop)
Your Instructor
I have been teaching in the English department at the University of Waterloo since 2003. My Ph.D is from the University of Alberta, where I wrote a dissertation on Caribbean women's writing, theories of cultural hybridity, and feminist politics of difference. I have taught broadly in world literatures with a focus on critical race theory and gender. My current research interests are focused on advocacy and activism from several directions: as a distinct field in humanities and rhetorical study; as a unique thread in Canadian literature; and as a theorized practice I am pursuing through research projects at nonprofit agencies. For more info, here is my department profile page.
Materials and Resources
Textbook(s)
Required (available at W Store)
Hill, Gord. The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book. Arsenal Pulp, 2010.
Course Reserves
Course Reserves can be accessed using the Library Resources widget on the Course Home page.
Resources
Library COVID-19: Updates on library services and operations.
Course and Department Policies
Course Policies
For this term, I am not going to set late penalties for work that is submitted past the due date. During this pandemic, all of us are dealing with many pressures and difficulties, and I trust you are going to figure out how best to manage your workload during the term. It's better for both of us if you try to submit your work on time so you can pace yourself during the course (and so can I), but I am not going to ask you to explain if you do miss a deadline. If you are having troubles keeping up please contact me so I can help.
University Policies
Academic integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. [Check the Office of
Academic Integrity for more information.]
Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70, Student Petitions and
Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.
Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity to avoid committing an academic offence, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. [Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information.] A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate associate dean. For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline. For typical penalties, check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.
Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71, Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72, Student Appeals.
Note for students with disabilities: AccessAbility Services, located in Needles Hall, Room 1401, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without
compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with AccessAbility Services at the beginning of each academic term.
Turnitin.com: Text matching software (Turnitin®) may be used to screen assignments in this course. Turnitin® is used to verify that all materials and sources in assignments are documented. Students' submissions are stored on a U.S. server, therefore students must be given an alternative (e.g., scaffolded assignment or annotated bibliography), if they are concerned about their privacy and/or security. Students will be given due notice, in the
first week of the term and/or at the time assignment details are provided, about arrangements and alternatives for the use of Turnitin in this course.
It is the responsibility of the student to notify the instructor if they, in the first week of term or at the time assignment details are provided, wish to submit alternate assignment.
Coronavirus Information
Coronavirus Information for Students
This resource provides updated information on COVID-19 and guidance for accommodations due to COVID-19.
Mental Health Support
All of us need a support system. I encourage you to seek out mental health supports and resources when they are needed. You can reach out to Campus Wellness and learn about the variety of services available to promote your mental health and wellbeing.
Copyright
© Heather Smyth and University of Waterloo.