African American Literature II

This course examines African American literature and vernacular culture from 1940 to 2017. Students explore the major authors, genres, aesthetics, political movements, and intersectional tropes of the period. The course focuses on the Great Migration, Popular Front radicalism, social realism, the Civil Rights/Black Power movements, the Black Arts movement, and the post-Civil Rights ethos. Students also explore representations of the law and technology in the primary texts. The course emphasizes African American resistance, agency, transculturation, intertextuality, and cultural continuity.