AMST 3503

Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024. Courses of Study 2024-2025 is scheduled to publish mid-June.

This course offers an opportunity to read in depth two major writers of the twentieth century, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Friends and one-time collaborators in the New York City of the 1920s, each had important careers that extended long after the Harlem Renaissance period in which they achieved early renown. This class will survey the myriad genres in which each writer worked (short stories, poetry, novels, drama, critical writing, folklore and anthropology). And it will also consider the literary, cultural, and political contexts in which both writers achieved early renown and which their work critically contested. The class concludes by examining the reading works of later major authors (Toni Morrison, Harryette Mullen) who drew directly with Hughes' and Hurston's legacy.

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