ENG 321B - African American Literature Post-1950

Prerequisite, ENG 256. Anti-racist work involves changing laws, norms, and consciousness. It involves challenging dichotomies, categories, and stereotypes. Reading and writing about literature can be part of this process-and literature is also always an art form, open-ended and excessive, more about questions than answers. As writers, African Americans like Ann Petry and James Baldwin were part of the historical period (1950s and 60s) when segregation laws were dismantled, yet their optimism was tempered by the sticky qualities of racism and the willed naivete of white Americans who forgot history and pretended that racism no longer existed. In the 1960s and 70s, Black women writers like Adrienne Kennedy, Alice Walker, and Fran Ross experimented with received literary forms and questioned myths about male authority and authenticity. And later in the 20th century Toni Morrison and Percival Everett exploited the apparently plain black and white of the page: as individuals read, they see only words, not people, and that “lack” of information opens a creative space. Lingering over these decades and throughout the texts by these writers are racial expectations to write a certain way, expectations that they challenged. Students will end the semester with writing by Claudia Rankine, Terrance Hayes, and Colson Whitehead-on anger, trauma, and graveyards. Letter grade with Pass/No Pass option. (Offered as needed.) 3 credits