African American Literature and Film: The Politics of Watching

Catalog description

For many contemporary readers and movie watchers, reading and watching African American literature and film, respectively, represent their desire to support and be in solidarity with African American political struggles. However, African American writers and filmmakers have historically complicated assumptions that consuming African American literature and film is the equivalent of supporting African Americans or African American liberation struggles. This course will explore the politics of making, consuming, and critiquing African American literature and film while expanding what we define as political, who is considered a political actor, and the relationship between politics and art broadly. Writers and films included in this course include Toni Morrison, bell hooks, James Baldwin, Black Panther , Sorry to Bother You , and short film from the L.A. Film Rebellion. Satisfies an Africana Studies major requirement.