01   MW6  CAC  69739  PRATER  MU-114

“What the finger writes, the soul can read.”—Alice Walker

“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.”—Zora Neale Hurston

“Writing, like dreams, confronts, pushes you up against the evasions, self-deceptions, investments in opinions and interpretations…”—Toni Cade Bambara

“I write the way women have babies. You don't know it's going to be like that. If you did, there's no way you would go through with it.”—Toni Morrison

In 1851, at a women’s rights convention in Akron Ohio, Sojourner Truth asked of her audience “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” In this one sentence, equal parts question, statement and demand, she makes central the problem of negotiating discourses of race and gender and what constitutes resistance for the black female subject. From the moment the black female entered the terrain of “self” representation she had to negotiate a minefield “isms.” The primary focus of this course will be on how the black female subject “resists” and will explore the contributions of black women in American literature. You will read across a breadth of genres, including poetry, drama, essays, and the novel, with primary emphasis on the novel. We will examine early writers whose contributions influence contemporary writers, but our major focus will begin with the Harlem Renaissance and move forward.

Writing requirements for this course will be: two close reading essays, one midterm and a larger final paper where you will explore one text in depth in the context of the thematics covered over the semester in this course.