First-Year Seminars 110AE - The African American Essay

In this first-year seminar, students will be introduced to and acquainted with the essay form as it has been endeavored by African American writers throughout the 19th and 20th century. This course emphasizes the essay as a written genre that is meditative, argumentative, and inquisitive; it is a form that open-endedly captures a course of thought, often times raising more questions than proffering secure answers to its inquiries. In this sense, the essay is characterized by the French etymological origins of the term which means "to try" or "to attempt." With these interpretative groundings, we will explore how Black writers have ventured thought, critique, performance, disorder and more through the rhetorical format of the essay.

Mount Holyoke first-year students only, by placement.