The Politics of African American Literature from the 19th through mid-20th Centuries (October 24)
A vigorous debate occurred among and between African American writers on whether the literature they
produce should be a propaganda tool that resists oppression and educates and advances the condition of
the black masses; or whether it should primarily be an individual expression of self that reflects an
authors personal perception of the reality ugly and beautiful in the words of Langston Hughes of
life and living as a black American? This team will report on Criteria for Negro Art and Two Novels
by W.E.B. DuBois; The Negro-Art Hokum by George Samuel Schuyler; Characteristics of Negro
Expression by Zora Neale Hurston; The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes;
African American Literature/Topics in Black Literature Fall 2015 Syllabus page 4
Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry by James Weldon Johnson; Blueprint for Negro
Writing by Richard Wright; and/or other approved selections written in the 18th, 19th and early 20th
centuries.
Women in