ENGL 40736 - Harlem's Americas

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

What was the Harlem Renaissance? While traditional notions of this time in literary history have conceived of it as a brief but luminous flowering of the arts in African-American culture, not so much attention has been given to the many different voices that contributed to the movement, and which shaped its representations of race in the early twentieth century. In this course, we will examine the meaning and significance of the Harlem Renaissance as conventionally understood, then move on to an exploration of Harlem's Americas, or the many cultural locations from which race and racial representation were being considered both inside and outside the movement's accepted parameters. Thus, rather than studying the Harlem Renaissance solely as an African-American phenomenon, we'll also explore the interrelationships between a number of its core works, along with several others from the same period not generally studied in this context. In seeking to understand the writing of Harlem's Americas, we'll investigate how all of the texts we examine are engaged in a larger dialogue on the meaning of race in the early twentieth century, both in the United States and beyond. In so doing, we'll try to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of the Harlem Renaissance, while considering what this may have to tell us about race and racial representation, not only in the early twentieth century, but on into the twenty-first. Course texts: Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery; W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk; Jessie Fauset, Plum Bun; Nella Larsen, Quicksand & Passing; Sherwood Anderson, Dark Laughter; Jean Toomer, Cane; Carl van Vechten, Nigger Heaven; Claude McKay, Home to Harlem; Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South Course requirements: Three five-page essays, in-class writing, 20-minute group presentation

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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