ENGL 319 - Race and its Metaphors

Semester Offered: Spring
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 2023/24b: Race and Its Metaphors: Black Renaissance/Black Revolution: This course focuses on “renaissance” and “revolution” as metaphors in African American literature produced during the Harlem Renaissance. We will be guided by a number of related questions. What was the Harlem Renaissance? What was revolutionary about Black writing during the 1920s and 1930s? Does a renaissance necessarily bring revolution in thought, form, or action? Toward the latter, what critical culture shifting was made possible by the Harlem Renaissance writers working out of a shared sense of purpose? Writers covered in the course may include Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Dorothy West, Nella Larsen, and many others. Eve Dunbar.

This course satisfies the REGS requirement for the English major.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS