Preface:

This seminar offers a diverse survey of major texts in twentieth-century American literature, with a significant emphasis on African-American and other minority writing. The following is a list of possible authors and texts included: W. E. B. Du Bois, Soulsof Black Folk (1903); Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919); Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro (1925); F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925); William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1936); Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937); James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son (1955); Robert Hayden, selected poems (1960s and 1970s); Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (1976); August Wilson, Fences (1987).

Additional readings were selected in consultation with the seminar participants. This seminar was appropriate and interesting for teachers of English and Literature creating curricular materials at many levels, Social Studies teachers seeking an understanding of American culture of the period, as well as teachers looking to augment their curriculum and personal knowledge from other subject areas.