Studies in American Literature: The Harlem Renaissance

Catalog description

This course surveys African American authors whose writings published during the 1920's continue to hold relevance in the contemporary world. The PBS broadcast, A Walk Through Harlem cites James Weldon Johnson’s Black Manhattan as a major source for the documentary. W.E.B. DuBois warned about the levees of New Orleans more than fifty years ago. Langston Hughes’ reputation is international. We have just seen a screen adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Sterling a. Brown, Claude McKay, Dorothy West, James Vanderzee, Carter G. Woodson, Paul Robeson, Alaine Locke and many other writers and poets, visual artists and educators bring us a vital literature that is both local, Harlem based, and international since many of the authors traveled the world This course highlights the beauty and acknowledges the terror of the period in American history when Harlem was “in vogue”.