African American Literature

Course Description

AML2600 — African American Literature (also titled at some Florida institutions as Introduction to African American Literature or Survey of African American Literature) is a 3-credit lecture course providing a comprehensive survey of the literature produced by writers of African descent in the United States from the colonial period through the present. The course meets approximately 3 hours per week, with most institutions accumulating 45 total contact hours over a 15-week semester. As a course in the SCNS AML 2xxx series, it is taught at the sophomore level and is widely accepted as a Florida General Education Core Humanities course, often satisfying both the humanities general-education requirement and a multicultural or diversity flag at participating institutions.

The course examines the major writers, works, movements, contexts, and themes of African American literary tradition from its origins in colonial-era slave narratives and early Black poetry through the abolitionist literature of the nineteenth century, the Harlem Renaissance, the social-realist and protest traditions of the mid-twentieth century, the Black Arts Movement, and contemporary literary production. Anchor authors typically studied include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, August Wilson, and contemporary writers such as Colson Whitehead, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jesmyn Ward, and Kiese Laymon.

The course connects literary analysis to the broader historical context of African American experience: the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery, abolition and emancipation, Reconstruction and its aftermath, the Great Migration, the civil rights and Black Power movements, the contemporary period including the Black Lives Matter movement. Students learn to read literary works as both aesthetic productions and as documents of social, political, and cultural history. The course is offered at approximately 16 Florida public institutions, including Miami Dade College, Broward College, Palm Beach State College, Florida State College at Jacksonville, the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida, Florida International University, Florida A&M University, Valencia College, Seminole State College, Daytona State College, Pensacola State College, and Tallahassee State College.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Identify and analyze the major writers, works, and literary movements in African American literary tradition from the colonial period through the present.
• Apply literary analytical methods — close reading, thematic analysis, character analysis, narrative structure, point of view, figurative language, genre conventions — to specific African American literary works.
• Recognize and interpret major themes in African American literature, including identity and double-consciousness, racial violence and resilience, family and community, migration and displacement, religion and spirituality, gender and intersectionality, freedom and self-determination.
• Connect African American literary works to their historical contexts — the slave trade and chattel slavery, abolitionism, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the civil rights and Black Power movements, the post-civil-rights era.
• Analyze the slave narrative as a distinct literary form, including its conventions, rhetorical strategies, and political function; examine specific narratives by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Olaudah Equiano, and others.
• Examine the Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937) as a foundational moment in African American literary modernism, including the work of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Nella Larsen.
• Analyze post-1940 African American literary production through the work of writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lorraine Hansberry, recognizing the diversity of aesthetic and political stances within the tradition.
• Examine the Black Arts Movement (1965-1975) and its relationship to the Black Power movement, including the work of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Haki Madhubuti.
• Analyze the work of major contemporary African American writers, including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, August Wilson, Colson Whitehead, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jesmyn Ward, and others as institutional and individual choices dictate.
• Examine the role of African American women writers in shaping the tradition, including the foundational work of Black feminist literary criticism (Alice Walker, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Smith).
• Recognize the diversity of African American literary form, including poetry, fiction, drama, autobiography and memoir, essay, and oratory.
• Produce argumentative literary analysis essays that develop a clear thesis, support it with specific textual evidence, engage with secondary criticism where appropriate, and follow MLA citation conventions.

Optional Outcomes

Depending on the instructor's emphasis, students may also:

• Examine African American literary criticism and theory, including the work of Henry Louis Gates Jr., Houston A. Baker Jr., bell hooks, and Hortense Spillers.
• Connect African American literature to African diasporic literary traditions in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Britain.
• Examine the relationship between African American literature and music, including the influence of spirituals, blues, jazz, soul, and hip-hop on literary form.
• Engage with African American literary scholarship through secondary criticism, journal articles, and digital scholarly resources.
• Conduct independent research on a specific author, work, or topic, producing an original literary research paper.
• Examine Florida-specific African American literary heritage, including Zora Neale Hurston's connection to Eatonville, James Weldon Johnson and Florida, and contemporary Florida-based African American writers.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Origins and Early African American Writing — Phillis Wheatley as the first published African American poet; the development of early Black writing in colonial and early-republic America.
• The Slave Narrative — as a literary form and political instrument; Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845); Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861); Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789); Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave (1853).
• Antebellum Oratory and Political Writing — Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?"; David Walker's Appeal; the abolitionist tradition.
• Reconstruction and Post-Reconstruction Writing — the writing of W.E.B. Du Bois (The Souls of Black Folk) and Booker T. Washington (Up from Slavery); the debate between accommodation and protest; Charles Chesnutt's fiction; Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry.
• The Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937) — Langston Hughes's poetry and essays ("The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"); Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and her Florida anthropological work; Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer's Cane, Nella Larsen's Passing, the patronage and editorial role of Alain Locke.
• Mid-Twentieth-Century Social Realism — Richard Wright's Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945); Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952); James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963); Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry; Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959).
• The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements — the rhetorical writing of Martin Luther King Jr. ("Letter from Birmingham Jail," "I Have a Dream"); the autobiography and oratory of Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965).
• The Black Arts Movement (1965-1975) — Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Haki Madhubuti; the relationship between aesthetic experiment and political commitment.
• African American Women's Writing — Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982) and womanist theory; Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) and Song of Solomon (1977); Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969); Audre Lorde's poetry and essays.
• African American Drama — Lorraine Hansberry; August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle (Fences, The Piano Lesson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone); contemporary playwrights.
• Contemporary African American Literature — Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2016); Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me (2015); Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones (2011) and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017); Kiese Laymon, Tracy K. Smith, Claudia Rankine; selections from contemporary African American writers as institutional and time constraints allow.
• Literary Analysis Methods — close reading, thematic analysis, character analysis, narrative structure, figurative language, genre conventions, intertextuality.
• Academic Writing in Literary Analysis — thesis development, evidence selection, secondary source integration, MLA citation, revision practice.

Optional Topics

• African American Literary Criticism and Theory — Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s signifying theory; Black feminist criticism (Hortense Spillers, Barbara Smith, bell hooks); Afro-pessimism (Frank Wilderson, Saidiya Hartman).
• African Diasporic Connections — comparison with Caribbean Anglophone literature (Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid), Black British writing (Bernardine Evaristo, Zadie Smith), African and African-diasporic literatures.
• Literature and Music — the influence of spirituals, blues, jazz, soul, and hip-hop on African American literary form.
• Florida African American Literary Heritage — Zora Neale Hurston in Eatonville; James Weldon Johnson's Florida connections; contemporary Florida-based writers.
• Independent Research Project — original literary research culminating in a research paper or presentation.

Resources & Tools

• Anchor anthology — Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Valerie A. Smith (editors), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (Third Edition, 2014); this is the standard comprehensive anthology used across most Florida institutions. Some courses use the more recent Norton Anthology of African American Literature or supplementary anthologies as well.
• Individual works — most courses pair the anthology with selected full-length texts: Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, and others as institutional and time constraints allow.
• Open educational resources — Documenting the American South (UNC Chapel Hill, free online primary sources); The African American Odyssey (Library of Congress digital collection); the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library) digital archives; the Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive at the University of Central Florida.
• Critical and scholarly resources — JSTOR, Project MUSE, the African American Literature Book Club (aalbc.com), the African American Review, Callaloo, and other scholarly journals accessible through Florida college libraries.
• Audio and video resources — recordings of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin debates; spoken-word performances; film adaptations of major novels.
• Florida-specific resources — the Zora Neale Hurston Festival in Eatonville (annual); the Florida African American Heritage Trail; the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) digital resources; Florida A&M University library special collections.

Career Pathways

AML2600 develops the close-reading, evidence-based writing, and cultural-analytical skills foundational to numerous careers:

• English / Literature Majors (B.A.) — Foundational coursework for English and literature majors at Florida public universities, particularly programs offering African American Studies, American Studies, or Africana Studies concentrations.
• African American Studies, Africana Studies, and American Studies — Florida public universities offering such programs (UF, FSU, USF, UCF, FIU, FAMU) build on this foundation.
• K-12 English / Language Arts Teaching — Florida certification in English Language Arts (6-12) increasingly emphasizes diverse literary traditions; AML2600 provides foundational preparation. Florida public-university B.S.E. and M.A.T. tracks build on this base.
• Pre-Law — Florida law schools value applicants with strong analytical reading and writing preparation; African American literature courses provide foundational engagement with legal and political history.
• Journalism, Communications, and Publishing — Florida media careers benefit from deep familiarity with African American literary and cultural traditions; major Florida publications and broadcasters cover stories where this literacy is essential.
• Public History, Museum Studies, and Archives — Florida hosts substantial public-history institutions covering African American heritage, including the Zora Neale Hurston Museum (Eatonville), the African American Heritage Trail, and the upcoming Black history initiatives at Florida public universities and historical societies.
• Social Work, Community Organizing, and Public Service — Florida social workers, advocates, and community organizers benefit from substantive cultural and historical literacy regarding the communities they serve.
• Library and Information Science — Florida MLIS programs build on undergraduate humanities training; African American collection development is a growing specialization.

Special Information

Florida General Education Core

AML2600 is widely accepted as a Florida General Education Core Humanities course. The course satisfies the humanities general-education requirement at most Florida public colleges and universities, and is commonly accepted as fulfilling a multicultural or diversity course requirement where institutions maintain such requirements separately.

Articulation and Transfer

AML2600 articulates without loss of credit between any two Florida public colleges and the State University System under the Statewide Course Numbering System.

Gordon Rule Writing Component

At most Florida public institutions, AML2600 is a Gordon Rule writing course, requiring at least 6,000 words of writing (approximately 24-25 typed pages) across the semester and a grade of C or higher to satisfy the writing requirement for the Associate in Arts (A.A.) degree.

Course Format and Author Selection

Specific reading lists vary substantially by institution and instructor. While the canonical authors (Douglass, Hurston, Hughes, Baldwin, Morrison, etc.) appear in nearly all sections, the selection of contemporary authors, the balance between poetry and prose, the inclusion of drama, and the depth of historical context all vary. Students should consult specific course syllabi when selecting sections.

Florida Context — African American Heritage and Curriculum

Florida has a rich and distinct African American literary heritage. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), one of the foundational figures of the Harlem Renaissance, grew up in and wrote extensively about Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated all-Black town in the United States. James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), poet and civil rights leader, was born in Jacksonville. Florida has been the setting for major works of African American literature, including significant portions of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Florida's African American history curriculum at the K-12 level has been the subject of recent state-level policy discussion, including House Bill 7 (2022) (commonly known as the "Stop W.O.K.E. Act") and revisions to Florida African American history standards. These policy developments primarily affect K-12 instruction; postsecondary courses at Florida public colleges and universities continue to teach African American literature with traditional academic freedom and scholarly rigor. Students should consult institutional policies regarding any specific concerns about course content.

Prerequisites

Standard prerequisites include college-ready placement in reading and writing, and at most institutions, successful completion of ENC1101 (English Composition I) with a grade of C or higher. Some institutions also require concurrent or prior enrollment in ENC1102 (English Composition II) or a foundational literature survey (LIT2000 or AML2010).

AI Integration

Generative-AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) can be useful for clarifying historical and biographical context, generating summary information about authors and works, and providing initial explanations of literary concepts. However, AI tools have significant limitations for literary analysis: they frequently produce generic and oversimplified interpretations, misattribute quotations and stylistic features, and cannot substitute for sustained engagement with a literary text. The use of AI to generate writing submitted for graded literary analysis is generally a violation of academic integrity policy. The fundamental skills of literary study — close reading, original interpretation, evidence-based argumentation, and engagement with literary craft — are irreducibly the student's responsibility. Students must consult institutional and instructor-specific policies on AI use.