I'm really excited today,first: because today I begin my last full-time semester as an undergraduate student. I won't graduate until May, but I'll only be part-time starting in January. I'm also excited because I deliberately saved African American literature and studies for my last year, in order to spend this time reading and writing about the work that I was raised on and inspired by. With the exception of a World Music class, (which I'm taking to satisfy a humanties requirement), I'm taking a second semester of African American literature from 1919-the present, an African American studies class on the Harlem Renaissance, and I will be doing my thesis which is a close reading of the narrative,
From the Darkness Cometh the Light or Struggles for Freedom by Lucy Ann Delaney.
I am especially geeked about the Harlem Renaissance class, not only because we will look at the films
Lady Sings the Blues and
The Great Debaters, but the text for the class will be engaging and I can't wait to get into that whole "art as propaganda" discussion brought forth by W.E.B. DuBois, and
The Negro and the Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes. In addition to the
Norton Anthology of African American Literature edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (and the late Nellie McKay), I'll be reading
The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance edited by George Hutchinson, and
Voices From the Harlem Renaissance by veteran, Nathan Irvin Huggins.
We'll also be reading Ernest J. Gaines'
A Lesson Before Dying,
Their Eyes Were Watching God, and August Wilson's
The Piano Lesson. If that isn't enough, we'll also be seeing productions of Wilson's
Gem of the Ocean and
Radio Golf.
Is this school, or literary Heaven?
[Last photo is a scene from Wilson's
Gem of the Ocean.]
Labels: english classes, literature, Reading
No matter how you slice it, it's just plain Historical; that a black man is accepting the nomination of a major politcal party to possibly become the president of the United States of America. I have to admit, I didn't think he'd get this far. Now, I believe that it just might happen. But, I just wonder though: remember how your grandmother or auntie used to have the photographs of Martin, John and Jesus hanging on the wall like members of the family? Will a new generation add Obama's portrait?
