Literature of the Harlem Renaissance

This course examines the major literary works of the Harlem Renaissance and the historical, sociological, and intellectual contexts underlying the flowering of black creativity in the early decades of the twentieth century. Attention is given to a variety of genres such as poetry, drama, essays, autobiography, and fiction and tothe thematic and stylistic elements of individual texts. Authors to be studied include James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Nella Larsen, Claude McKay, Jessie Fauset, Sterling Brown,and Zora Neale Hurston. This course may serve as the capstone for the liberal arts English minor. (Students will receive credit for BLS 4545 or ENG 4545. These courses may substitute for each other in the F-replacement policy).