Spring 2007 Courses

English 376-01: African American Literature from 1900 to the Present (English)

T/TH 2:45-4:15pm, MAIN 001
Prerequisite: A 100-level English course

This course will trace the development of an African American literary and cultural tradition from the turn of the century to the present. We will explore the ways that African American writers, artists, and performers of the 20th century have expressed a shared history of trauma, migration, and survival via a wide range of genres and forms, including: autobiographies, novels, blues songs, poems, photographs, short stories, plays, films, and literary and cultural criticism.

In our examination of the ways that aesthetic form works to construct individual and collective identities, we will cover many topics, among them: the "New Negro," the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Blues, the centrality of gay, lesbian, and queer politics and identities in modern African American cultural movements, Black Power and the Black Arts Movement, Black Feminism, and the present-day "renaissance" of African American literature and cinema.

Requirements include: written discussion questions on each work, an in-class presentation, and three papers of about 5-7 pages each. This course fulfills the U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major and the domestic diversity general education requirement.

Spring 2007 Course Listings