ENGL 3773 - The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement

(crosslisted) AMST 3773, ASRC 3773
(CA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

M. Crawford.

In the poem “Return of the Native,” Amiri Baraka writes, “Harlem is vicious modernism. BangClash.” This class will compare the “BangClash” of the 1920s and 1930s Harlem Renaissance and the 1960s and 1970s Black Arts Movement. How do visual art, theater, music, poetry, and novels come together in particular cultural movements? How does the “New Negro” movement relate to the move from “Negro” to “Black” during the Black Arts Movement? This course will open up some of the most complex and dynamic aspects of African American cultural movements. The writers and artists studied will include Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Alain Locke, Zora Neale Hurston, Nikki Giovanni, Aaron Douglas, Sun Ra, Faith Ringgold, Nella Larsen, and Sonia Sanchez.