Given the central importance of the autobiography to the development of African-American literature, this course aims to explore the ways in which this form has come to influence the writing of African-American fiction in the twentieth century. Beginning with James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, arguably the first "modern"African-American novel and a work that explicitly crosses both generic and racial categories, the course will explore figurations of blackness, passing, African identity, assimilation and segregation through the subsequent fictional/autobiographical writings of Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler and Gayl Jones. Requirements: 20 pages of writing, in the form of short papers. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit:19 per section (expected: 19 per section). Preference to first-year students. Two sections.

Hour: CHAKKALAKAL