ENGL3363-Masterpieces of African American Fiction

Instructor: Cedric Tolliver

This course introduces students to prose fiction in the African American literary tradition. We will study novels as aesthetic responses to and reflections of particular historical moments in the United States: post-Reconstruction, Harlem Renaissance, post-World War II, and post-Civil Rights eras. Our literary-historical approach will focus on novels that have contributed to and signified on major literary and artistic movements such as realism, naturalism, modernism, and postmodernism. Throughout the course, students will develop attentive reading, critical thinking, clear writing, and persuasive presentation skills to discuss texts in this literary tradition.