Welcome to English/Ethnic Studies 238!

This course introduces students to a survey of Black literature, focusing on the early oral tradition, literature of slavery and freedom, the Harlem Renaissance, Modernism, the Black Arts Era, and the contemporary period. Students examine the literature as a reflection of Black experience in the world and the effects of the literature on American culture and politics. Reading selections consist of poetry, short stories, plays, novels, and nonfiction prose, including essays, letters, political tracts, autobiographies, speeches, and sermons. The authors we will engage with this semester include Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Lucile Clifton, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Saul Williams, Ntozake Schange, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Natasha Trethewey. We will analyze and discuss their works and write about them critical essays.

Additionally, we will celebrate and honor the diverse contributions of Black authors. Students will study how these texts are situated in complex historical and cultural traditions and enter these conversations as empowered scholars. Given the pervasiveness of anti-blackness sentiments in our country and history of systemic racism and white supremacy, the course offers students a timely and in-depth literary, historical, and cultural analysis of the vastly rich contributions of African and African American authors.

None