This course explores what an engagement with life writing by black Americans teaches us about the United States and its quest for democracy. We will situate contemporary writers within a larger literary tradition, beginning with James Baldwin'sThe Fire Next Time, a quintessential civil rights movement text, followed byBetween the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, whom Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called the Baldwin of the Black Lives Matter era. We will also consider how various forms of memoir--as open letter (Imani Perry'sBreathe and Kiese Laymon'sHeavy), as interconnected essays (Emily Bernard'sBlack Is the Body), as literary criticism (Farah Jasmine Griffin'sRead Until You Understand)meditate upon fundamental questions of citizenship, truth-telling, and fullest human blossoming. Note: Students who have taken the Seminar version of this course (ENGL 6036) may not take this version of the course.
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