Why is American literature-and more so, African American literature-often scarce in great books curricula? Is there something essentially un-Western about the African American experience? I would say No. As Glenn Loury says of the great traditions and minds of the West: Douglass?-Mine!
0:00:00: Exciting hook
0:00:36: Opening Montage ("Three Sides to a Person")
0:01:14: Preface: Douglass?-Mine! (via Glenn Loury)
0:14:08: Douglass as great books author...
0:15:58: ...as proven in the first paragraph
0:19:56: Trigger the hero's journey
0:20:46: I may have gotten the basic graph from Vonnegut...
0:21:10: The 3 archetypal graphs of the hero's journey
0:23:37: Graph 1: tragedy
0:24:55: Graph 2: situation comedy
0:26:37: Graph 3: divine comedy
0:28:08: Add wisdom
0:30:00: A "divine tragedy"
0:30:30: Douglass's story a divine comedy
0:32:06: The young Douglass's questions
0:32:41: Animal or rational animal?
0:34:04: Can his owners dehumanize him?
0:34:34: The ways they try: brutalizing violence
0:36:30: : destruction of the family unit
0:38:56: : treatment as a brute animal
0:42:42: : excessive, inhumane work
0:00:00: Leisure, the basis of culture
0:44:40: Teaching a slaveboy his A,B,C
0:46:17: Master Auld's prophecy
0:47:56: Sophia Auld's brutalized soul
0:52:19: A definition of N-word
0:52:40: Aristotle on man as rational animal
0:52:50: Ie, an animal with Logos
0:52:58: John 1:1
0:53:18: Take the Logos away
0:53:35: The young Douglass's epiphany
0:55:22: Definition of "man" extended
0:55:38: Coming in Part 2: St. Augustine and Goethe