Topics in Literature of Americas I

19th Century African American Literature

In this course, we will analyze African American literature from the long nineteenth century. This project requires us to look for literature in exciting and unexpected places. We will find that the seeds of twentieth-century movements like the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and Afro-Futurism were first planted here. Canada’s relationship to American chattel slavery, and the importance of the idea of Canada to African American discourse, will also be examined. Our investigation will be guided by a series of key questions: How did concepts of race, gender, nationality and kinship influence black writers during this period? How is interdisciplinarity evident in primary nineteenth century texts and contemporary criticism? How do the afterlives of the nineteenth century continue to haunt the present?

Readings

Our reading list will include work by major figures like Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass as well as less frequently considered writers like Pauline Hopkins. Our investigation will encompass non-canonical texts so that we can develop a richer sense of African American literary culture during the period. We will engage with a wide range of scholarly criticism.