Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance

Catalog description

Focus will be on race, gender, class and sexuality in Jazz Age America as related to the development of the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem was the center of black culture in the 1920s; but this "New Negro Movement" stretched far beyond Harlem. In this course, we will explore both the national and transnational dimensions of the Harlem Renaissance and how the culture of the Harlem Renaissance helped to shape modern American culture more broadly. This course will include an examination of the Harlem Renaissance in American history from multiple perspectives including literary, artistic, cinematic, economic and philosophical aspects of the Renaissance in American history.