ENGL-2110 African-American Literature
(TEXTS & CONTEXTS, ENGAGING DIFFERENCE) This course is a survey of periods and movements in African American literature, including early slave narratives, the Harlem Renaissance of the early twentieth century, the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, and contemporary literature. We will study various literary genres--fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama--and the literary elements that make up each work. Along the way, we will seek to understand how African Americans have responded through literature to the oppressions of white America--slavery, segregation, violent and institutional racism--as well as how authors forge identity and create community through writing. We examine how these authors respond to their own literary tradition, how they shape form, style and genre in response to their historical context, and how they use writing as resistance, subversion, self-realization, and celebration. Formerly a section of ENG-265.