AMST 240 African American Women Writers

In the 1970's, African-American women writers dominated the literary market. The novels and memoirs of Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker were read and praised widely. Though the 1970's saw a surge in their popularity, African-American women had been writing since the nation's inception, as exemplified by Phillis Wheatley's 1773 volume of poems. Throughout its literary history, African-American women's writing has reflected upon, and often challenged, assumptions about American identity and experience, racial justice, and gender and sexual norms. This course surveys the long history of this literature and focuses, especially, on texts that supply world views inflected by the particular experience of living as American, black, and female. Authors under consideration include those mentioned above, as well as June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, Sojourner Truth, Sonia Sanchez, Octavia Butler, and Evie Shockley.