ENGL 216   African-American Literature* (3 Hours)

Prerequisites : ENGL 119 or ENGL 121.

In this survey course, students will read African-American literature from the 1700s to present day. Through readings and discussions that may include poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction, students will examine Black literary expression in the United States and how it has influenced, and been influenced by, major phases and pivotal moment in American history. By exploring this relationship between race and writing, students will gain an understanding of how African-American writers have reconstructed and revised words and ideas historically meant to exclude them in the pursuit of literary self-representation.