White on Black IA-0247

What happens when a white American author chooses black American life as subject matter? Is it possible for white Americans to write about black life without stereotyping and misrepresenting? This class will focus on such questions involving literary texts, mainly novels and plays, that explore black American life and experience. We will read these works and ask further questions: What unique vision do white authors bring when they treat black life? How have these works and authors contributed to the development of American literature? How has social history shaped and informed these texts? We will also examine patterns, themes, and motifs that have emerged historically in them?e.g., the tragic mulatto, primitivism, rape and lynching. Among texts we will read include: Harriet Stowe, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; William Faulkner, LIGHT IN AUGUST, Fannie Hurst, IMITATION OF LIFE; John Griffin, BLACK LIKE ME; Joyce C. Oates, BLACKGIRL/WHITE GIRL; William Styron, CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER; Lilian Smith, STRANGE FRUIT; Eugene O'Neil, EMPEROR JONES; Edward Albee, DEATH OF BESSIE SMITH. This course satisfies Division I distribution requirements. WRI, REA, PRS, PRJ, MCP.