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May 12, 2024
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2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
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ENGL 2083 - African American Literature
Credits: 3
Although the African American literary tradition is over two centuries old, it underwent a “magnificent flowering” in the 1990s, and continues to flourish globally and across racial boundaries in the 21st century. Just observe the number of books sold by and Nobels/Pulitzers awarded to African American authors during the past thirty years. Consider too that the formal African American literary tradition (black authors highlighting black experience) has finally and rightfully become a central study in U. S. literature curriculums. What is the black voice? What accounts for the “African element” in African American literature? What is the relationship of the formal African American literary tradition to traditional vernacular literatures like the blues, gospel, the sermon, and jazz, and more recently the globalized vernacular of hip hop and the “Spoken Word” movement? And what is its relationship to the American tradition? These are a few of the questions we will explore as we read and discuss literatures drawn from the more than two centuries of imaginative writings in English by persons of African descent in the U. S. Won’t you join us in exploring one of the world’s great and flourishing literatures?
Offering: As Needed
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