English 254EN - Topics in African American Literature: 'The Early African American Novel'

This course tracks the beginnings of the African American novelistic tradition in the nineteenth century. The early African American novel had to contend with a number of other literary forms within its political and cultural context such as the slave narrative with its central claim to truth. We will consider: What is specific to the form of the novel? How does it differentiate itself from and even include other forms of writing and literature? What are the politics of the early African American novel in the era of slavery and abolition? We will examine how early novels by Black Americans imagine more emancipatory futures while also critiquing the unfreedom of the nineteenth century.