ENGH 351: Contemporary African American Literature

ENGH 351-001: Contemporary Af-Amer Lit
(Spring 2016)

12:00 PM to 01:15 PM TR

Section Information for Spring 2016

We will read and dissect fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism published from the middle of the twentieth century to the present. Our exploration will focus on the emergence of a distinctly black modernist and post-modernist literary discourse, often in response to and in conversation with contemporaneous Anglo-American literary movements and trends. We will investigate some of the following: African American writers’ engagement with the “Wright School of Social Protest”; the evolution of the Black Arts/Black Aesthetic Movements of the 1960s and 1970s; the emergence of black feminist and womanist literature, criticism, and theory in the 1970s and 1980s; and the so-called “third renaissance” of the 1990s and 2000s. However, the class will not be limited to these literary and cultural concerns: You’re expected to generate your own points of discussion and/or contestation. In addition to introducing you to African American literature and/or enhancing an existing knowledge of it, the class will concentrate primarily on strengthening your critical thinking and writing skills; to that end, there will be frequent writing assignments.

Tags:

Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Encompassing array of genres and forms, examines black writing from mid-20th century to present. Engages textual, critical, political, and theoretical issues related to cardinal literary movements, such as Black Arts Movement of 1960s and Third Renaissance of 1980s-90s. Examines how musical forms such as blues, jazz, and rap shaped literary production. Major authors include Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Alice Walker, Ernest Gaines, Gloria Naylor, August Wilson, and Toni Morrison. Offered by English. Limited to three attempts.
Recommended Prerequisite: Satisfaction of University requirements in 100-level English and in Mason Core literature.
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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