English 350HR - Afr. Am. Lit.: Harlem Renaiss.

The course will study the literature, politics, and art of the Harlem Renaissance--roughly a period from 1915 to 1940. The New Negro Movement brought together writers, artists, philosophers, musicians, and everyday people from many parts of the United States and the Caribbean to New York City's Harlem. Their efforts to create a distinct African American art resulted in a flowering of art from several different perspectives. The era has most frequently been thought of as a 1920s-only phenomenon, and many have suggested that it was less a renaissance than a first flowering of a collective artistic spirit. We will energetically take on the debate.