The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt

The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt

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The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
New: Othello, Lesson 2 of The Course, Explores Power and Self Doubt
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A newsletter extending The Course: a study of the ideas, people and events that have shaped the African-American experience.
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New: Othello, Lesson 2 of The Course, Explores Power and Self Doubt

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Jon Fortt
Jun 01, 2021

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The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
New: Othello, Lesson 2 of The Course, Explores Power and Self Doubt
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I’m excited to unveil the latest interactive offering in The Black Experience in America: The Course. Lesson 2: Othello.

Shakespeare is a pillar of Western culture, and it’s profound that he tackled race, belonging and power in a play written before the first African slaves arrived in Virginia. In this lesson, we look at Othello through modern eyes (and at the modern world through Othello), and consider the inner toll of double consciousness.

When I first set to work designing a curriculum on the Black experience, I knew I wanted Othello to be part of it. I first studied the play in Professor Cynthia Cornell’s Shakespeare class as a freshman at DePauw University, and it blew my mind. There I was, an 18-year-old Black kid from Washington, D.C., trying to learn and build relationships on a tradition-steeped campus in rural Indiana. I wasn’t just reading about the Moor of Venice. I was the Moor of Venice.

In the context of W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness, introduced in Lesson 1, Othello’s tale carries extra weight. Doesn’t this, from Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, sound like Shakespeare’s tortured general?

The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment. Such a double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes, must give rise to double words and double ideals, and tempt the mind to pretence or revolt, to hypocrisy or radicalism.

For everyone who is tempted to believe that race and racism no longer matter at all, and that class alone affects people in our society, this lesson and this play pose what I hope is a thought-provoking challenge.

Enroll today.


You can take The Course online. Buy a lesson bundle, and send others the link:


Also, it’s now easy to purchase a bundle as a gift:

Fully-paid access to a lesson bundle will go to the recipient of your choice. This is a great option for introducing young people to the curriculum.

Enroll

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The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
New: Othello, Lesson 2 of The Course, Explores Power and Self Doubt
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Anti-Asian Bias and the Work to Do
My two favorite Korean-American (and African-American) boys, in Seoul, 2019.
Mar 22, 2021 • 
Jon Fortt
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The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
Anti-Asian Bias and the Work to Do
Race and the Truth Behind the Ugly Duckling
When I was growing up in Washington, D.C.
Aug 21, 2021 • 
Jon Fortt

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The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
Race and the Truth Behind the Ugly Duckling
Daunte Wright, George Floyd, and the Paradox of Fear in the Black Experience
Ida B.
Apr 26, 2021 • 
Jon Fortt

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The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt
Daunte Wright, George Floyd, and the Paradox of Fear in the Black Experience

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