Mar 29, 2024  
2016-2017 Catalogue 
    
2016-2017 Catalogue [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ENGL 21014 - Religion in Black Film and Literature

Course Credit: 1
(CMLT)
This course analyzes the complicated role of religion, particularly Christianity, in black communities during slavery, the Great Migration, the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and the Post Civil Rights Era. The course considers ways in which religion is shown to empower and/or oppress black people; ways in which the politics of class, gender, and sexuality inflect black religious practices; and strategies by which transcendent, spiritual experiences are represented. Films may include Spencer Williams’ The Blood of Jesus; Stan Lathan’s Go Tell it on the Mountain; Spike Lee’s Four Little Girls; Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust; and T.D. Jakes’ Woman Thou Art Loosed. Texts by Alice Walker, Melba P. Beals, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ernest Gaines, as well as some visual art, are also considered. [AH, R]