In this class we will read a
selection of African American women writers through a variety of periods and
genres. We begin in the
nineteenth-century with Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself to access how she
represents slavery, and Harriet Wilson’s Our
Nig, a sentimental novel exploring interracial relationships, slavery,
racism, and democracy. As we move ahead
to the twentieth-century we will read foundational authors in the canon of
African American women writers such as Ann Petry’s The Street, Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Audre Lorde’s memoir Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.
We end the semester with two very recent texts, Bernice McFadden’s Sugarand Zelda Lockhart’s Fifth Born.As we move through these texts we will examine how women writers
found a voice in a white-dominated, patriarchal society in addition to
examining the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality. The course will also include a significant
amount of poetry, visual culture, and other expressive mediums by African
American women.
Course Requirements
*4 Close Readings
*Midterm Paper
*Protocol
*4 scene analysis
*Final Paper
*Attendance and
Participation
Required Texts
*Lorde, Audre. Zami:
A New Spelling of My Name.
*Wilson, Harriet.
Our Nig; Or, Sketches from the
Life of a Free Black.
*Lockhart, Zelda.
Fifth Born: A Novel
*McFadden, Bernice. Sugar:
A Novel
*Hansberry, Lorraine. A
Raisin in the Sun
*Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself
*Morrison, Toni. Beloved
*Petry, Ann. The Street:
A Novel