This course offers a survey of literary production by African Americans from the late eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Essays, autobiographies, speeches, poems, novels, short stories, plays, songs, and films will allow us to see the multiple ways in which African Americans have put into words and made sense of their diverse experiences within American society across the centuries. But such works also help us in 2016 understand and come to terms with the significance of race (as well as class, gender, sexuality, and religion) in this country’s past and present. A few questions for you to consider throughout the semester: Why is African American Literature a course unto itself, and should it be? Who do you find to have been the most effective African American writers (and in many cases, activists) to date—those who used the “master’s tools” (e.g., European literary conventions; a certain tone or approach; etc.), those who adopted alternative modes of expression, those who fell somewhere in-between, or all of the above? Why? And lastly, how is African American literature relevant for understanding race relations in the U.S. today?