"The problem of the Twentieth-Century is the problem of the color line," W.E.B. Du Bois announced in 1903. Du Bois wrote when Jim Crow racism was firmly in place in the United States, segregating African Americans, ensuring their impoverishment, and denying them political representation. This course explores Jim Crow's legacy in twentieth- and twenty-first century African-American literature. Why are Americans still haunted by Jim Crow? What would it take to exorcise that ghost?
Prerequisite: B+ average in ENGL; open to ENGL Honours students. |