Lecturer in charge: Dr. Mawuena Logan [Room 34 - New Arts Block]

This course explores a representative sampling of the literature produced by African-American writers, from the antebellum era to the present. This semester the focus will be on the novel. The course seeks to acquaint students with the subject matter and art of the writers, and with the socio-historical, political, and aesthetic conditions that have enabled and shaped the creation, publication, and reception of these texts .

Level: III

Credits: 3

Prerequisite : HUMN 2201 (AR22A) or LITS 2103 (E21C) or LITS 2107

(E21G) or LITS 2108 (E21H) or LITS 2113 (E21M)

Instruction: 2 lectures, 1 tutorial per week

Evaluation: Tutorial presentations and 1 term-paper (10 pages) 40%

Final 2-hour examination (2 answers) 60%

Prescribed Texts :

•  Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Anchor/Doubleday pb)
•  Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man (Penguin pb)

•  Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Harper & Row pb)

•  Johnson, Charles. Middle Passage (Penguin pb)

•  Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon (Plume/Penguin pb)

Recommended Texts:

•  Christian, Barbara. Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers

•  Du Bois, W. E. B. Souls of Black Folk

•  Gates Jr., Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism

•  Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

•  Napier, Winston, ed . African American Literary Theory: A Reader