In Harlem, during the decade separating the end of World War I and the beginning of the Depression, a generation of black artists and writers born around the turn of the century emerged as a self-conscious movement, flourished, and then dispersed. They described themselves as part of a “New Negro Renaissance”; cultural historians describe them as participants in the Harlem Renaissance. In this course students will survey the literature, culture and politics of the Renaissance by examining essays, memoirs, fiction, poetry, art and music of the period.

Readings will include works by W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Marcus Garvey, Alain Locke, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, and Nella Larsen.