AFS 335 Black Autobiography

This course covers the genre of autobiographical writings by Black Americans from its beginnings in the slave narratives to modern times. Autobiography encompasses three important theoretical frameworks: Self, Life and Writing. All three will be explored as components of Black writers’ grappling with the meaning of intersectional identities in American culture and society. How do Black autobiographers, for example, contend with their own self-identity in a culture that initially denied their personhood? What are the individual/collective parameters of narrativizing Black lives? And finally, why is writing essential to the recovery of both selfhood/self-knowledge and life stories? Writers will include Mary Prince, selected narrators of the North American Slave Narratives known as the WPA Narratives, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Malcom X , Audre Lorde and James McBride.