Preface:

In light of the vexed history of African Americans in the United States, social realism has been the dominant mode for African American writers seeking to make black life legible. But a careful examination of literary history reveals African Americans writing across a range of genres, including detective, western, and speculative fictions. This seminar will work to explicate texts (both literary, televisual, and cinematic) that feature the detective, the cowboy, and the space (or time) traveler in hopes of expanding our under-standing of how racial, gender, and class identities have been and are being performed as well as how those identities are reimagined to navigate the conventions of a particular genre. Do these works offer writers another avenue for social criticism? Or do they seek to transcend (or deemphasize) social critique? Authors in the course will likely include Walter Mosley, Octavia Butler, Barbara Neely, Samuel Delany, Tananarive Due, and Chester Himes, and we will be viewing a range of television shows and films.
Teachers of language arts will especially find the content a welcome source of literary diversity to capture interests of their students by adding to, or enhancing, the required materials in their curriculum.