230632 African American Women Writers (S) (SoSe 2008)

Throughout their presence in the U.S.A., African American female writers have created an important, though not always acknowledged, niche for themselves within U.S. American literatures. By reading poetry, slave narratives, novels, essays, speeches and theatre, this course will explore how ethnicity, gender, class, and socio-economic context are fundamental to the shaping of the writing of black women in U.S. American society. In order to do so, we will engage with the background of each writer as well as a brief overview of African American writers in general to better understand the historical, social, and political forces that have shaped their writing.