LARTS 355 — African American Literature: Black Experience, Black Subjectivity

3 credits
Summer
Renée Baron

This class is a survey of African American literature from its inception in this country. Organized by theme instead of historical period, we will read creative works in a variety of literary genres—plays, novels, essays, and poetry. We will explore the creative strategies authors employ in their constructions of Black identity. That is, we will consider how they frame their own experience as Black people. Moreover, we will investigate the manner in which these authors define Black autonomy and imagine Black freedom. Authors will include Harriet Jacobs, Olaudah Equiano, Dionne Brand, August Wilson, Octavia Butler, and James Baldwin. Students in this class should have read Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.