"Race" is a fiction, with no basis in biological fact. This course examines how "fictions" in the artistic sense (novels, stories, movies) have both fostered and challenged "fictions" in the ideological sense-that is, the lies and mystifications about race that pervade American cultural life. The course begins with modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, focusing on Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, and the rise of jazz; other writers to be considered include William Faulkner, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Paul Bowles. We will also study landmark movies in the history of race-relations, such as Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, Imitation of Life, The Heat of the Night, and the sci-fi allegory Blade Runner. The course concludes with late twentieth-century fiction, comparing African American, Chinese American, and Native American women's writing (Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Marmon Silko). Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: one 8- and one 12-page paper. Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 25). (Post-1900)

Hour: ELLMANN