AML 5608 Summer 2018 Gaines

The history of black cultural production in the United States is a legacy of protest. Since black bodies were first considered property and then only fractionally human, claiming personhood through arts and letters is a revolutionary act. This course will consider the canon of African American literature through an expansive definition of protest. We will theorize how the definition of protest has evolved since the 18th century while continuing to inform our own sociopolitical moment. We will find protest in both obvious and unlikely places-from the seemingly conservative poetry of Phillis Wheatley to the nearly instantaneous archive of resistance enabled by social media and 21st century screen technologies. As we interrogate the meanings of blackness and protest, we will also reveal how that history has consistently shaped American identity. Throughout the course, we will encounter fiction, memoir, essay, poetry, and film.

Questions to be considered include (but are certainly not limited to):
What happens to the canon of African American literature when seen through the lens of black protest? Are protest, revolution, resistance, riot, and rebellion interchangeable? What is the relationship between black protest and gender? What is the relationship between black protest and sexuality? What value can we place on black protest songs? Is there a genre most apt for black protest? If so, why? How does black protest instruct beyond black identity? What is its political utility? What does it mean to be a "black protest text?" Who is the audience for black protest? What do we do with those texts resistant to a black protest tradition? And ultimately, in a late capital and/or neoliberal moment, is there a limit to black protest? How and why?