Studies in American Literature (471-0-20)

Topic

The Black Novel

Instructors

Justin Mann

Meeting Info

University Hall 418: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

In this course students will assess how the novel has figured in the development of Black literature and life over the long 20th Century. Through our engagement with this form, student's will examine how long-form narrative fiction has captured the historical and social realities of Black life since the turn of the 21st century and how it has called for different worlds through innovative technique and style. We will read topically from the end of the 19th century through to the 21st century and will consider how the novel has evolved as a form that takes in multiple genres. In addition to fiction, students will also read theories of narrative written by black and non-black authors to better understand how narrative works.

Some conceptual questions for consideration include:

What historical, stylistic, aesthetic qualities produce the novel? How do Black American novels innovate formally, stylistically, and narratively? How do such innovations (or, on the contrary, adherence to tradition) help us understand literature and culture's work in the project of Black freedom?

Class Materials (Required)

Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man 978-1636003672
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God 978-0060838676
Ellison, Invisible Man 978-0679732761
Brooks, Maud Martha 978-0883780619
Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain 978-0375701870
Butler, Kindred 978-0807083697
Bambara, The Salt Eaters 978-0679740766
Morrison, Beloved 978-1784876432
Everett, Erasure 978-1555975999
La Valle, The Changeling 978-0812985870