AFRO 260

Spring 2016

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Afro-American Literature II
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Credit: 3 hours.

Same as CWL 260 and ENGL 260. See ENGL 260.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Cultural Studies - US Minority
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CRN Type Section Time Day Location Instructor Section Details
49623
Lecture-Discussion
P
11:00AM -12:15PM
TR
127 English Building
Hunt, I
Part of Term:
1
Date Range:
01/19/16-05/04/16
Degree Notes:
Cultural Studies - US Minority course.
Section Info:
This class will explore the various forms of writing produced by African Americans over the past century. Reading plays, novels, short stories, poems, essays, and songs, we will examine defining texts of the New Negro Movement, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, modernism, social realism, naturalism, and postmodernism. As we apply and critique the standard timelines and geographic boundaries for these periods and formal tendencies, we will trace how writers connected domestic situations with events occurring around the globe. Thus at heart we will question what the terms “African” and “American” signify in the literature and in what ways they conflict or coalesce. Many scholars have argued that this body of work is largely an emancipationist project in search of a more inclusive society. We will analyze and test this proposition by asking what rhetorical strategies writers have used to transgress or reinforce categories of exclusion, like essentialist identities of race, gender, and sexuality. How did these writers appropriate and challenge the ideals of American democracy that governments exported but failed to fulfill at home? And if they called their readers to live up to these ideals, did these writers subvert or affirm the notion of American exceptionalism? Through these questions you will ultimately come to appreciate how many different kinds of expression comprise twentieth and twenty-first century African American literature. Requirements include active participation in class discussions, group presentations, regular brief reading responses, two formal essays, an exam, and possible pop quizzes.
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