Introduction to African American Literature (266-0-20)

Topic

Af Am Lit from the Beginning to the Present

Instructors

Ivy G Wilson Jr

Meeting Info

Parkes Hall 224: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

This lecture course attends to the ways that African-American writers have, by virtue of trying to inhabit the creative space of the speculative, not only used literature as a counter valence to the socio-political world but have aesthetically extended the very idea of what was formerly identified as "literature" proper. Thus, the focus of our discussion will examine the conventions and experimentations with literary production through writings that grapple with U.S. racial formation as well as the novel forms of invention, play, and performance latent within imagination. While the course will gloss the major literary histories, the early 20th century to the present will be accentuated. Writers will include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Teju Cole, Roxane Gay, Kendrick Lamar, Claudia Rankine, Jean Toomer, and Colson Whitehead.

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity