Teaching Responsibility
LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:
Humanities and Social Science
Learning Methods
Lecture
Seminar
Tutorial
Module Offerings
6130ENGL-JAN-MTP
Aims
1. To consider what it means to speak of ‘black lives’ in America – how racial identities are produced and expressed, through and beyond the protesting of racial injustices
2. To explore different traditions of writing by African Americans from the twentieth century to the present, from fiction to poetry, essays and autobiography
3. To understand the conditions behind a recent flourishing in black culture, incorporating literature, film, music and fine art.
Learning Outcomes
1.
Demonstrate an awareness of key concepts in the theory and politics of race in America;
2.
Conduct an analysis of given literary texts that situates them in relation to African American traditions and engages with current critical approaches;
3.
Give evidence of initiative in researching contemporary debates about race and black culture
Module Content
Outline Syllabus:
This module explores a range of writing by and about African Americans from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Using the recent discourse of ‘black lives’ as an entry point, it considers the way writers and artists have contested racial injustices, articulated new identities, identified grounds for solidarity and alliance, and critiqued cultural practices that perpetuate suffering. It traces a shift from the cultural politics of the post-war, post-Civil Rights moment to a contemporary flourishing of creative activity that Ibram Kendi has called a ‘third renaissance’ of black culture.
Indicative primary texts:
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1961)
Paul Beatty, The Sellout (2016)
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)
Ta Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (2015)
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014)
Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Heads of the Colored People (2019)
Jesmyn Ward, The Fire This Time (2016)
Indicative secondary reading:
Jacqueline Bobo, The Black Studies Reader (2004)
Kimberle Crenshaw et al., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings (1996)
Madhu Dubey, ‘Speculative Fictions of Slavery’ American Literature (2010) 82/4 779–805
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the literary Imagination (1992)
Winston Napier, African American Literary Theory: A Reader (2000)
Kenneth Warren, What Was African American Literature? (2012)
American Literary History 29.4 (Winter 2017) special issue ‘What is Twenty-First-Century African American Literature?’
This module explores a range of writing by and about African Americans from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Using the recent discourse of ‘black lives’ as an entry point, it considers the way writers and artists have contested racial injustices, articulated new identities, identified grounds for solidarity and alliance, and critiqued cultural practices that perpetuate suffering. It traces a shift from the cultural politics of the post-war, post-Civil Rights moment to a contemporary flourishing of creative activity that Ibram Kendi has called a ‘third renaissance’ of black culture.
Indicative primary texts:
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1961)
Paul Beatty, The Sellout (2016)
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)
Ta Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (2015)
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014)
Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Heads of the Colored People (2019)
Jesmyn Ward, The Fire This Time (2016)
Indicative secondary reading:
Jacqueline Bobo, The Black Studies Reader (2004)
Kimberle Crenshaw et al., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings (1996)
Madhu Dubey, ‘Speculative Fictions of Slavery’ American Literature (2010) 82/4 779–805
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the literary Imagination (1992)
Winston Napier, African American Literary Theory: A Reader (2000)
Kenneth Warren, What Was African American Literature? (2012)
American Literary History 29.4 (Winter 2017) special issue ‘What is Twenty-First-Century African American Literature?’
Module Overview:
This module explores writing by and about African Americans from the mid-twentieth century to the present; you will consider how Black writers and artists have contested racial injustices, articulated new identities, and identified grounds for solidarity and alliance.
This module explores writing by and about African Americans from the mid-twentieth century to the present; you will consider how Black writers and artists have contested racial injustices, articulated new identities, and identified grounds for solidarity and alliance.
Additional Information:
This module is intended to speak closely to our Programme Learning Objective relating to the teaching of diversity and race. In the module there will be significant aspects of our de-colonized curriculum, including the study of primary and secondary texts by authors from BAME backgrounds. The module addresses the construction of racial identities and the manifestations of racism in the United States. It has an emphasis on black literary traditions and retains a hybrid theoretical / literary approach.
This module is intended to speak closely to our Programme Learning Objective relating to the teaching of diversity and race. In the module there will be significant aspects of our de-colonized curriculum, including the study of primary and secondary texts by authors from BAME backgrounds. The module addresses the construction of racial identities and the manifestations of racism in the United States. It has an emphasis on black literary traditions and retains a hybrid theoretical / literary approach.