English 346: History in African American Narratives

This course examines how Black writers and filmmakers use fictionalized narratives of American history as a means to contest predominant narratives of African Americans’ past. We will discuss how African American artists highlight hitherto obscure and whitewashed events, and call attention to the forms by which largely white-authored representations of the past misrepresent or exclude Black histories and memories. We will pay particular attention to community flourishing independent from as well as despite institutional structures that pose substantial challenges to community cohesion, intergenerational wealth accumulation, and positive conceptions of Black selfhood in historically racist formulations of U.S. nationalism. Writers and films may include Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, Paul Beatty, Danzy Senna, as well as Bamboozled, Judas and the Black Messiah, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and others. Fulfills the English Major “Underrepresented Literatures” requirement. May be elected for credit toward the Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies major and minor.