Schedule

Tuesday, 1/17              Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance

Thursday, 1/19            Artistic debates

• George Schuyler, “The Negro-Art Hokum” (Reader, pp. 96-99)
• Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (Reader, pp. 91-95)
• W.E.B. DuBois, “Criteria of Negro Art” (Reader, pp. 100-105)
• Wallace Thurman, “Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life” (Reader, 633-36)
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 1/18 at 8 pm

 

1. The New Negro

Tuesday, 1/24

• Arnold Rampersad, Introduction to The New Negro
• Alain Locke, Foreword and “The New Negro” (xxv-xxvii, 3-18)
• Albert Barnes, “Negro Art and America” (19-28)
• William Stanley Brathwaite, “The Negro in American literature” (29-46)
• Alain Locke, “Negro Youth Speaks” (47-56)

Thursday, 1/26

• James Weldon Johnson, “Harlem: The Culture Capital” (301-311)
• W.A. Domingo, “Gift of the Black Tropics” (341-349)
• W.E.B. DuBois, “The Negro Mind Reaches Out” (385-414)
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 1/25 at 8 pm

Tuesday, 1/31              Poetry in The New Negro (pp. 129-137, 214-215, 250-253)

• Countee Cullen, “To a Brown Girl,” “To a Brown Boy,” “Tableau,” “Harlem Wine,” “She of the Dancing Feet Sings,” “A Brown Girl Dead,” “Fruit of the Flower,” “In Memory of Colonel Charles Young,” “Heritage”
• Claude McKay, “Baptism,” “White Houses,” “Like a Strong Tree,” “Russian Cathedral,” “The Tropics in New York,” “Negro Dancers”
• Jean Toomer, “Georgia Dusk,” “Song of the Son”
• Essay on theories of art due

Thursday, 2/2              Poetry in The New Negro (pp. 138-149, 225-227)

• James Weldon Johnson, “The Creation”
• Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “An Earth Song,” “Poem,” “Youth,” “Song,” “Dream Variation,” “Minstrel Man,” “Our Land,” “I Too,” “Jazzonia,” “Nude Young Dancer”
• Arne Bontemps, “The Day-Breakers”
• Georgia Douglas Johnson, “To Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Upon Hearing This,” “The Ordeal,” “Escape,” “The Riddle”
• Anne Spencer, “Lady, Lady”
• Angelina Grimke, “The Black Finger”
• Lewis Alexander, “Enchantment”
• Gwendolyn Bennett, “Song”
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 2/1 at 8 pm

 

Tuesday, 2/7                Fiction in The New Negro

• Rudolph Fisher, “The City of Refuge” (57-74)
• Jean Toomer, “Carma” and “Fern” (96-104)

Thursday, 2/9              Fiction in The New Negro

• Zora Neale Hurston, “Spunk” (105-113)
• Eric Walrond, “The Palm Porch” (115-126)
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 2/8 at 8 pm

 

1. Fire!!

Tuesday, 2/14

• Nadell, “‘Devoted to Younger Artists’: Fire!! (1926) and Harlem (1928)”
• “Foreword” and Wallace Thurman, “Fire Burns: An Editorial Comment”
• Meet in library to look at microfilm version, talk about archival research
• [Fire!! is also available digitally: http://issuu.com/poczineproject/docs/poczp_fire_1926_readview]
• Aaron Douglas, “Three Paintings” (in the online version)

Thursday, 2/16

• Wallace Thurman, “Cordelia the Crude” (Reader, 629-633)
• Richard Bruce Nugent, “Smoke, Lilies and Jade” (Reader, 569-583)
• Langston Hughes, “Elevator Boy” (Reader, 263-264)
• Gwendolyn Bennett, “Wedding Day” (Reader, 363-369)
• Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat” (Moodle)
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 2/15 at 8 pm

Tuesday, 2/21             

• Arturo Schomburg, “The Negro Digs Up His Past” (New Negro, 231-237)
• Brent Edwards, Prologue to The Practice of Diaspora (Moodle)

Thursday, 2/23

• Brooker and Thacker, Introduction to Oxford Critical and Cultral History of Modernist Magazines (Moodle)
• Choose groups for presentation
• Peer review of essay #2

 To be scheduled: Trip to Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

 

III. Passing

Tuesday, 2/28

• Nella Larsen, Quicksand (pp. 1-66)
• Essay #2 due

Thursday, 3/2

• Nella Larsen, Quicksand (pp. 67-135)
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 3/1 at 8 pm

 

Tuesday, 3/7

• Nella Larsen, Passing (pp. 143-210)

Thursday, 3/9

• Nella Larsen, Passing (pp. 213-242)
• James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (ch. I-VI)
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 3/8 at 8 pm

 

Tuesday, 3/14 and Thursday, 3/16: No class because of spring break

 

1. New Negro Politics

Tuesday, 3/21

• Finish discussion of Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (ch. VII-end)
• Presentation on The Crisis

Thursday, 3/23

• Watch Emperor Jones on Moodle
• Montgomery Gregory, “The Drama of Negro Life” (New Negro, 153-160)
• Bert Williams, YouTube performances
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 3/22 at 8 pm

 

Tuesday, 3/28

• Michelle Stephens, from Black Empire (Moodle)
• Marcus Garvey (Reader, pp. 17-33)
• Presentation on The Negro World

Thursday, 3/30

• James Weldon Johnson, Self-Determining Haiti
• Mary Renda, from Taking Haiti (Moodle)
• Cyril Briggs, “The Ray of Fear” (Moodle)
• Presentation on The Crusader
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 3/29 at 8 pm

 

Tuesday, 4/4

• May Miller, “Christophe’s Daughter” (Moodle)
• Langston Hughes, “Emperor of Haiti” (Moodle)
• Presentation on The Messenger  

Thursday, 4/6

• Eulalie Spence, “Her” (Moodle)
• Eric Walrond, “The Voodoo’s Revenge” (Moodle)
• Presentation on Opportunity
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 4/5 at 8 pm

Tuesday, 4/11

• Zora Neale Hurston, from Tell My Horse (Moodle)
• Watch White Zombie on Moodle

 

1. Paris

Thursday, 4/13

• Brent Edwards, chapter 1 of The Practice of Diaspora (Moodle)
• Presentation on La revue du monde noir
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 4/12 at 8 pm

 

Tuesday, 4/18

• Talk about final project
• Revision of either essay #1 or #2 due in class

Thursday, 4/20

• Gwendolyn Bennett, “Wedding Day” (Reader, pp. 363-370)
• Excerpts from Légitime Défense (Moodle)
• Moodle journal response due by Wednesday, 4/19 at 8 pm

 

Tuesday, 4/25              Aimé Césaire, “Notebook of a Return to My Native Land” (Moodle)

Thursday, 4/27            Peer review of final projects

 

Exam period: Presentations of final projects