English 254TR - Topics in African American Literature: 'Tragicomedy in Black: Humor and Horror in Black Critical Expression'

The course examines horror and comedy as genre conventions that become strained and distorted when bent to the demands of black critical expression This course will center on themes of life and death as they are framed in black film and literature through idioms of the absurd and the ghastly. We will encounter film and writing by Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Chester Himes, Toni Morrison, Danielle Fuentes Morgan, Bill Gunn, Donald Glover. Students will learn how to close-read our media-saturated environment, thinking through the ways in which representation functions to condition our perception of enjoyment and terror.