Black Women Writers

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course will focus on the politics and poetics of Black women writers and Black feminism. We will read representative writings by Black women writers, exploring how these writers construct and complicate notions of history, nation, race, class, gender, and sexuality in their works. We will pay particular attention to the differences and similarities between the writers and their texts and how these similarities and differences reflect historical, social, and political realities. One overarching question for the semester: What role does the written word and the imagination play in struggles for freedom? Central themes this semester will include: the dialogic nature of black women's fiction; cultural conservation; the politics of black respectability; inclusive knowledge and theories; intersectionality; and the black female body as both ideological and political site. We will employ a variety of critical approaches, particularly critical race theory, Black feminist theory, and African American cultural studies. Writers may include Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, Lorraine Hansberry, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Roxanne Gay, Edwidge Dandicat, Gloria Naylor, Jesmyn Ward, Claudia Rankine, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Toni Morrison. This course is reading and writing intensive. Students may expect short papers, presentations, quizzes, and a research project.