African American Literature (Period 1)

Course Description: This course will examine the significance of a specifically African American literary tradition in shaping both the identities and the histories of the myriad people of African descent in the United States. We will begin by positioning African American literature within an American literary history. Specifically, we will be considering the ways in which the models of storytelling that shape African American narratives. We will closely consider verbal and literary modes, including: African retentions, oral traditions, signifying, folklore, and music, have created a unique African American literary voice, and have affected both African Americans’ understandings of themselves, as well as the ways in which they have historically been understood in the American popular imagination. In an effort to critically map the genealogies of this tradition we will be interrogating not only the historical and political contexts of the works, but also the ways in which issues of gender, sexuality, and class specifically inform the works.