(Cross-listed with BL_STU 3410) The dawn of the twentieth-century saw the publication of two major and very different works of African American writing: Booker T. Washington's autobiography and blueprint for Black uplift Up from Slavery (1901); and W. E. B. DuBois's book of essays The Souls of Black Folk (1903), with its famous assertion that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." Beginning with the still relevant debate between Washington and DuBois, this class traces the history of African American literature through the present day: from the outpouring of poetry, fiction, and essays that characterized the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s; through the work of mid-twentieth century realists like Richard Wright, Ann Petry, and James Baldwin; to the politically charged atmosphere of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s; up to the present day, with the expansion of African American writing to include writers of Caribbean and African origin. We'll mostly use the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, but will also read a few longer works that are not represented in the anthology. Students will be graded on in-class reading quizzes, a research project on a self-chosen area of particular interest, and two out of three short papers on works on the syllabus.

This course meets the Arts and Science Diversity Intensive requirement by providing a survey of African American writing since the start of the twentieth-century. This body of writing necessarily addresses important issues regarding Black people in the United States, such as racism, the legacy of slavery, and the nature of what it means to be/become an American citizen. The class also, as an English course, provides an overview of Black aesthetic excellence in the field of literature, addressing among other things the movement of African American writing, over the period covered by the course, from the margins to the center of American literature as such.