Afro-American Studies 690S - Black Aesthetics

Zora Neale Hurston famously and marvelously described the primacy of beauty in Black Life as "the will to adorn." What Hurston saw in the spelling and speaking, in the sculpting and singing of African Americans was a desire for beauty. However, this orientation towards ornamentation is only one account of the appearance and function of beauty. Another account of beauty is Du Bois?s definition (the longing for completeness), which coheres with a phrase that captures an entire theme in Toni Morrison?s Tar Baby ("At some point beauty becomes enough?"). These accounts of beauty as completeness or perfection in Du Bois and Morrison are different than the accounts that come from recent Black Studies theorists who understand beauty as a political object denied to Black people; and those recent theoretical accounts differ from the black women poets? of the 1980s and 1990s, black essayists? of the early 2000s, and the visual artists? that span the long 20th century. This seminar examines beauty and pays particular attention to signal concepts used by recent Black Studies scholars: "the black interior," "the black outdoors," and black aliveness." Students in this course will look to Black Critical and Creative writers who contribute to the branch of Black Studies called Black Aesthetics. Those writers include Lucille Clifton, Robert Gooding-Williams, Rizvana Bradley, Jericho Brown, Nikky Finney, Elizabeth Alexander, Kevin Quashies and more.