English 524
Wednesday: 7:35-10:05
ENG 264D
COURSE OBJECTIVES: By the end of this course, students will have a familiarity with both the major authors of the era along with the intellectual and cultural underpinnings of the period. They will know many of the terms associated with the Renaissance, including "passing," "talented tenth," "primitivism," "bohemianism," "clubs," "two veils," "the New Negro," "patrons," the plantation school," "UNIA," and "racial progress," along with their impact on literature.
MODES OF INSTRUCTION: This course will follow the basic structure of most English courses, combining some lecture with class discussion. Students will also be required to report each week on reaction papers written in response to the assignment.
September 5 Introduction
| 12 Locke, Essays: "The New Negro," "Negro Art in America," "The Negro in American Literature"; Fiction: "The City of Refuge," "Spunk," |
| "Sadji," "The Palm Torch" |
| 19 Locke, All Poems, "Compromise" (A Folk Play); Essays: "The Negro Spirituals," "The Negro Digs Up His Past," "Harlem, The Cultural |
| Capital," "The Paradox of Color," "The Task of Negro Womanhood" |
. 26 Toomer, Cane, pp. 3-69
October 3 Toomer, Cane, pp. 70-117
10 McKay. Home to Harlem
17 Mid-Term Examination
24 Hughes, The Ways of White Folks, pp. 3-155 PAPER ASSIGNED
31 Hughes, The Ways of White Folks, pp. 157-end
November 7 Larsen, Passing
14 Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man
21 THANKSGIVING VACATION
28 Fauset, Plum Bun (First Half)
December 5 Fauset, Plum Bun (Second Half) PAPER DUE
12 Thurman, Infants of the Spring
19 FINAL EXAM 7:30-9:30 **PLEASE NOTE TIME CHANGE**
OFFICE NUMBER EN 274D
OFFICE HOURS T & TH 11:00-12:30; W 12:00-2:00, 5:00-7:00
PHONE (203) 392-6733 Please Note. I do have voice mail. In the event that I am not in my office to receive your call, please leave your name and number (including area code), the time you called, and the time when you can be reached during the day.
GRADING POLICY Your grade will be based as follows: (1) 20% exam; (2) 30% paper; (3) 30% final; (4) 20% class participation, including attendance and arriving to class on time
PAPER The length of the term paper is 15-20 pages. All papers should be typed (word processor) and follow MLA format. All students will be expected to write a one or two page reaction paper prior to each class based upon that night's reading assignment.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES POLICY: If you have a documented disability, please contact me during the first week of the semester to discuss appropriate accommodations to ensure equity in grading, classroom experiences, and outside assignments. If necessary, I will meet with you and staff members of the Student Services Center to formulate a written plan of appropriate accommodations.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
A Meditation on Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance: With the Poetry of Essex Hemphill and Bruce Nugent. Sankofa Film and Video. NY: Water Bearer Films, 1992.
Andrews, William L. Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford UP, 1994.
Baker, Houston A. Jr. Afro-American Poetics: Revisions of Harlem and the Black Aesthetic. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1988.
---. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984.
---. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.
Bassett, John E. Harlem in Review: Critical Reactions to Black American Writers, 1917-1939. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna UP, 1992.
Bone, Robert A. Down Home: A History of Afro-American Short Fiction from its Beginnings to the End of the Harlem Renaissance. NY: Putnam, 1975.
Bontemps, Arna W., ed. The Harlem Renaissance Remembered: Essays. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1972.
Bronz, Stephen H. Roots of Negro Racial Consciousness; the 1920's: Three Harlem Renaissance Authors: Johnson, James Weldon; Cullen, Countee; McKay, Claude. NY: Libra, 1964.
Brown, Claude. Manchild in the Promised Land. NY: Macmillan, 1965.
Campbell, Mary S. Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America. New York: Abrams, 1987.
Carby, Hazel. Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. NY: Oxford UP, 1987.
Cooper, Wayne F. Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance: A Biography. NY: Schocken Books, 1990.
Davis, Arthur P. From the Dark Tower: African-American Writers 1900-1960. Washington, D.C.: Howard UP, 1974.
De Jongh, James. Vicious Modernism: Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination. NY: Cambridge UP, 1990.
Douglas, Ann. Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995.
Driskell, David C., and others. Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America. NY: Abrams, 1987.
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1903. NY: Dodd, 1979. E185.5 .D817
Fabre, Michel. From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840-1980. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1991.
Fleming, Robert E. James Weldon Johnson. Boston: Twayne, 1987.
Floyd, Samuel A. ed. Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance: A Collection Of Essays. NY: Greenwood P, 1990.
Franklin, V. P. Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths: Autobiography and the Making of the African-American Intellectual Tradition. NY: Oxford UP, 1995.
Gates, Henry L. Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. NY: Oxford UP, 1988. PS153 .N5 G28
Greenberg, Cheryl. "Or Does It Explode?": Black Harlem in the Great Depression. NY: Oxford UP, 1991.
Hamalian, Leo, and James V. Hatch. The Roots of African American Drama: An Anthology of Early Plays, 1858-1938. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1991.
Huggins, Nathan I. Harlem Renaissance. NY: Oxford UP, 1971.
---. Voices from the Harlem Renaissance. NY: Oxford UP, 1976.
Hull, Gloria. Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1987.
Johnson, Abby A., and Ronald M. Johnson. Propaganda and Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of African-American Magazines in the Twentieth Century. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1991.
Kellner, Bruce. The Harlem Renaissance: A Historical Dictionary for the Era. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P, 1984.
Knopf, Marci., ed. The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem Renaissance Stories by Women. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993.
Kramer, Victor A., ed. The Harlem Renaissance Re-Examined. New York: AMS P, 1987.
Lewis, David L. When Harlem was in Vogue. NY: Knopf, 1981.
Locke, Alain., ed. The New Negro: An Interpretation. 1925. NY: Arno, 1968.
Martin, Tony. African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey's Harlem Renaissance. Dover, Mass.: Majority P, 1991.
- - -. Race first: the ideological and organizational struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1976.
Perry, Margaret. The Harlem Renaissance: An Annotated Bibliography and Commentary. NY: Garland Pub., 1982.
- - -. Silence to the Drums: A Survey of the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1976.
Roses, Lorraine E. Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900-1945. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990.
Russ, Robert A. The Harlem Renaissance: A Selected Bibliography. NY: AMS, 1987.
Scruggs, Charles W. The Sage in Harlem: H.L. Mencken and the Black Writers of the 1920s. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984.
Singh, Amritjit, et al, ed. The Harlem Renaissance: Revaluations. NY: Garland, 1989.
---. The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance: Twelve Black Writers, 1923-1933. U Park: Pennsylvania State U P, 1976.
Spencer, Jon Michael. The New Negroes and Their Music: The Success of the Harlem Renaissance. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1997.
Thurman, Wallace. ed. Fire!! Facsimile edition of a periodical published in New York. Metuchen, N.J. : Fire!! Press, 1982.
Tyler, Bruce M. From Harlem to Hollywood: The Struggle for Racial and Cultural Democracy, 1920-1943. New York: Garland, 1992.
Wagner, Jean. Black Poets of the United States. Urbana-Champaigne: U of Illinois P, 1989.
Waldron, Edward E. Walter White and the Harlem Renaissance. Port Washington: Kennikat P, 1978.
Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Bloomington : Indiana UP, 1995.
Washington, Mary H. Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women, 1860-1960. Garden City: Anchor P, 1987.
Watson, Steven. The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930. NY: Pantheon Books, 1995.
Weixlmann, Joe, and Houston A. Baker, Jr., ed. Studies in Black American Literature. Greenwood, Fl: Penkeville, 1988.
Wintz, Cary D. Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. Houston: Rice UP, 1988.
- - -. ed. The Harlem Renaissance 1920-1940: Interpretation of an African American Literary Movement. NY: Garland, 1996. 7-Volume set.
- - -. ed. The Emergence of the Harlem Renaissance. NY: Garland, 1996.
- - -. ed. Remembering the Harlem Renaissance. NY: Garland, 1996.
LINKS TO OTHER SITES You may find the following sites to be useful for background and research. If during the course of this semester you should happen upon other sites that you believe might be relevant to this topic, please let me know.
Harlem Renaissance (http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/9intro.html) An interesting link to various studies relating to the Harlem Renaissance, including music, art, literature, and culture. Contains photographs.
Course Bibliography (http://www.southernct.edu/~florey/afambib.html) A bibliography of sources on the Renaissance in the Southern library.
Slave Narratives (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/wpa/wpahome.html) A site devoted to the stories of ex-slaves. It includes an annotated index along with photographs.
If you have comments or suggestions, e-mail me at floreyk1@southernct.edu
site last updated by k. florey on 6/23/07