Department of English

What is African American literature now? This course will uncover the styles and themes that are defining the first decades of twenty-first century African American literature. Our focus will be the new literary voices that have emerged in the twenty-first century and, also, writers whose twenty-first century art is the late stage of their larger literary flow. Twenty-first century African American literature extends a long tradition of African American literature and, also, breaks this tradition as it creates new space for satire, heightened experimentation, and less legible images of class, gender, race, and sexuality. Our list of authors may include Toni Morrison, Danzy Senna, Jesmyn Ward, Lynn Nottage, Colson Whitehead, Percival Everett, Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Alice Walker, and Tayari Jones.