Black Studies Program
Black Studies and OMA Book Club
Have you read any good books lately? The Black Studies Program and Office of Multicultural Affairs are co-sponsoring a book club in order to enrich Washington College's intellectual life, encourage self-directed learning experiences, and support life-long learning through the study of diverse ethnic groups and cultures. This book club provides a supportive and relaxed environment for students, faculty, staff and alumni from every department and academic discipline to explore and discuss engaging works of literature, both fiction and non-fiction.
2009-2010 Reading List
All meetings will be held on the third Wednesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the CAC Common Room (1st floor), unless otherwise noted. Discussion questions will be posted on this web page one week prior to each meeting. Join the listserver to get updates about upcoming meetings. If you would like more information about the book club, please contact Dr. Alisha Knight, aknight2@washcoll.edu, or Darnell Parker, dparker2@washcoll.edu.
September 16, 2009
Erasure, by Percival Everett
Thelonius "Monk" Ellison, author of experimental novels, is somewhat estranged from his family....When his sister is killed, Monk returns to Washington, D.C., to care for his mother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease....Monk is also in the midst of a professional crisis after the seventh rejection of his most recent novel. In a fury over the success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, a debut novel by a black woman exploiting racial stereotypes, Monk writes his own ultra ghetto novel. Quoted from Booklist.
Download discussion questions (PDF)
October 21, 2009
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who--from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister--dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú--a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Quoted from Amazon.com.
Read discussion questions
November 18, 2009
Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley
This jaunty crime novel, set in L.A. in 1948, introduces Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a recently laid-off mechanic who is young, black and--but for the need to meet the mortgage on his new house--a most reluctant sleuth....[A] white businessman, Dewitt Albright, engages Easy to locate a beautiful French woman named Daphne Monet who has a "predilection for the company of negroes." She also has $30,000 of someone else's money. Easy becomes entangled in a chain of events that takes him to bar after bar to meet a range of characters, most of whom are seeking their own advantages in the pursuit of Daphne. Quoted from Publishers Weekly.
Book Club Questions
1. How does Mosley use imagery and symbolism to explore the topic of race and racial ambiguity?
2. Examine Easy's home as a symbolic space, and consider his experiences there in that light. What does Easy's home represent for him?
3. Why do you think Mosley makes sexual perversity such a large part of Devil in a Blue Dress? Is it gratuitous? If so, explain why specifically. If not, what does it signify?
January 20, 2010
Assata: An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur
This book presents the life story of African American revolutionary Shakur, previously known as JoAnne Chesimard. Chesimard she took an African name to confirm her commitment to black liberation, joined militant organizations, and was ultimately convicted of the murder of a New Jersey highway patrol officer in 1977. Her descriptions of life in prison and the vagaries of the court system are especially wrenching. Living now in Cuba as an escaped felon, she continues her utopian plea for revolution. Quoted from Library Journal
February 17, 2010
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris
The emotional terrain of lives led without the steady presence of fathers or husbands is common ground for the three generations of American Indian women who successively tell their stories in this absorbing novel. Rayona, 15, half black and half Indian, is abandoned by her mother and in turn abandons her Aunt Ida. She disappears from their Montana reservation one summer and gains independence through a job at Bear Paw Lake State Park and a surprising foray into rodeo stardom. Her mother faces what appears to be the last days of her often wild life in the kind company of a misunderstood man who was both a childhood friend and enemy on the reservation. Linked to both is Aunt Ida, the stony family matriarch who lost her favored son to the Viet Nam War and now warms her heart before the electronic fires of television soap operas. The bitter rifts and inevitable bonds between generations are highlighted as the story unravels and spills out a long-kept family secret. Quoted from School Library Journal
March 17, 2010
Annie John, by Jamaica Kincaid
At the start of Annie John, the 10-year-old heroine is engulfed in family happiness and safety. Though Annie loves her father, she is all eyes for her mother. When she is almost 12, however, the idyll ends and she falls into deep disfavor. This inexplicable loss mars both lives, as each grows adept at public falsity and silent betrayal. The pattern is set, and extended: "And now I started a new series of betrayals of people and things I would have sworn only minutes before to die for." In front of Annie's father and the world, "We were politeness and kindness and love and laughter." Alone they are linked in loathing. Annie tries to imagine herself as someone in a book--an orphan or a girl with a wicked stepmother. The trouble is, she finds, those characters' lives always end happily. Luckily for us, though not perhaps for her alter ego, Kincaid is too truthful a writer to provide such a finale. Quoted from Amazon.com
April 21, 2010
Kehinde, by Buchi Emecheta
After living in London for many years, Kehinde's husband Albert decides that they will return to Nigeria. He strongly urges her to abort the baby she is carrying, and she does so with great apprehension. He takes their two children and leaves her to sell the house and tie up loose ends at her prestigious bank job. He then returns to their homeland, where he takes a new young wife and has a child by her. When Kehinde arrives in Nigeria and discovers the truth, she is pressured by her own and Albert's female relatives to play the role of the subservient wife. Her sense of reason wins out, and readers will applaud her decisions at the end of this short, honest novel. Quoted from School Library Journal
