The African American Novel (331-0-1)

Instructors

Nicole A Spigner

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Tues, Thurs 12:30PM - 1:50PM

Overview of class

In this survey course about the Black Novel, students will spend time in the 1980s, also known in academia as the Era of the Black Woman Novel. Through the formal naming and development of Black Feminism during the 1970s, the writings of Black women came into high fashion. Beginning in the late 1970s and peaking during the 1980s, this era saw the emergence of several Black women writers whose names now circulate in popular as well as academic spheres. Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer in 1988 for the novel many consider her masterpiece, Beloved. Along with Morrison, Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams wrote neo-slave narratives, a genre that explored the unique positions of women and girls during Atlantic enslavement and from their more "modern" positions. Additionally, Butler emerged as the mother of Black science fiction. Paule Marshall, Michelle Cliff, and Tsitsi Dangarembga introduced women of the Black diaspora to their counterparts in Caribbean and continental African contexts and demanded to be seen as separate from—and not absorbed by—American exceptionalisms. Authors like J. California Cooper, Toni Cade Bambara, Bebe Moore Campbell, and Terry McMillan wrote popular fiction that Black women greedily read, starved for stories that featured women like them, and then talked about at the proverbial water cooler, in nail and hair salons, and that were sometimes developed into film.

This class will explore the Black woman novel of the 1980s. We will ask of these books: what exactly do these authors have in common, and what separates them? Are there any consistent themes, allusions, imagery, frameworks, and craft methods that we can identify as essential to understanding "the Black Woman Novel" of this time? How are these authors inserting themselves into existing traditions of literary production while, simultaneously, creating new genres and categories of their own? Finally, what can we learn from these authors that can help us in the current moment?

Come to class ready to tackle themes of love, pain, betrayal, self-expression, self-determination, identify formation and more. This course is primarily discussion-based and requires that each and every student contribute to interpretation and meaning-making. Together, we will ask the above questions—and far more—by reading several Black women's novels of the 1980s over our ten weeks. The course will include evaluations of class participation, in-class exercises and assignments, small writing assignments, and a final multimedia project. Come ready to read and spend a wonderful intellectual time digging into narratives, genres, and the gorgeous imagery of these works.

Class Attributes

Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: PRE-REG: Reserved for Black Studies majors & minors.