AFST 20024 - The Black Power Era Revisited

Course Credit: 1
Students will encounter the Black Freedom struggle through the literature, music, art, and political activism of the Black Arts Movement. The Black Arts Movement had far-reaching consequences for the way artists and writers think about race, gender, history, identity, and the relationship between artist production and political liberation. We’ll read work by Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Larry Neal, among others. We’ll also trace the movement’s extension through local political battles and the emergence of new institutions, including theaters, journals, and Black Studies programs. We’ll consider the overlap of the Black Arts Movement with other political currents of the late 1960s and early 1970s, explore its relationship to Black feminism, and trace the influence of the Black Arts Movement in hip-hop and film. [AH, C, HSS]