Topics in Afro-American Literature: The Harlem Renaissance
Ines Salazar profile
MWF 11
The course will provide an introduction to the literary and nt known as the Harlem Renaissance. Although the precise chronological limits are somewhat difficult to define, this course will consider texts written during the 1920's and 1930's. We will begin by examining how during the 1920's Harlem became "the black metropolis," to quote James Weldon Johnson, in the middle of the white city of New York. As the black metropolis, Harlem attracted a vanguard of young Black writers who fostered a Black literary movement of tremendous scope and depth. As such, we will also consider the
ways in which the movement came to symbolize an ethos of racial renewal and autonomy. Or as Alain Locke wrote in 1925, "In Harlem, Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self determination." Among the authors we will study are: Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Angela Weld Grimke, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Claude McKay.
updated 2006-02-20
