AFAM 466 – African American Novel I

This course examines the origins of the African American novel and follows the genre's evolution into the early twentieth century, outlining the relationships among the texts that form the body of African American narrative as well as the relationships of those texts to the constantly shifting cultural and political realities surrounding their writing. From the earliest novels, written during the period of slavery, through the Reconstruction era, the nadir of Black Codes and Jim Crow Supreme Court decisions, and into the Renaissance heralded by Alain Locke and others, course readings encompass a broad range of styles and genres, from early proto-documentary modes, through the realism and naturalism of a later time.