ENGL 319 - Race and its Metaphors

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as AFRS 319) Re-examinations of canonical literature in order to discover how race is either explicitly addressed by or implicitly enabling to the texts. Does racial difference, whether or not overtly expressed, prove a useful literary tool? The focus of the course varies from year to year.

Topic for 2022/23a: Race and Its Metaphors: Black Renaissance/Black Revolution: This course focuses on “renaissance” and “revolution” as metaphors in African American literature. Paying specific attention to literature produced between the 1920s and 21st century, we ask a number of related questions: What was the Harlem Renaissance? Are we in the midst of another Black literary renaissance? How do we archive and account for a renaissance? What is revolutionary about Black writing? Does a renaissance necessarily bring revolution in thought, form, or action? Toward the latter, what critical culture shifting is made possible when writers and artists work out of a shared sense of purpose? What role has/does whiteness (as a metaphor) played/play in Black revolutions? Writers covered in the course may include Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine, Colson Whitehead, and others. Eve Dunbar.

This course satisfies the REGS requirement for the English major.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS