Course Catalog

This course examines the flowering of culture—in the areas of literature, music, dance and art—that took place predominantly during the 1920s for black Americans in Harlem, N.Y., a movement that has become known as the Harlem Renaissance. The course places this cultural renaissance, or rebirth, within the historical context out of which it grew—the modernizing America in a post-WWI era, the rise of jazz and the blues, and the Great Migration, among other factors. We will study writers, intellectuals, and visual and performing artists whose work demonstrates the debates and major contributions of this historical movement.