ENMC 8860 - The Harlem Renaissance: African-American Writing Between the Wars

Examines the cultural and artistic history of the period. Why was it called a ‘renaissance’? Was Harlem a geographic or imaginative world? The framing of documents of the period are discussed (Alain Locke’s The New Negro, Hughes’ The Negro and the Racial Mountain, and Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing, most especially). Includes works of the major authors (Toomer, Hughes, Hurston, Brown, Wright, and McKay), focusing on the major themes (the new negro, the folk, the idealization of Africa, the sense of the Jazz Age) as viewed from within the music.

Credits: 3