This course examines how U.S. cultures are constructed, reinforced, and changed, and how those cultures act simultaneously at a given time. To help students develop skills in cultural analysis, lectures will contrast various methods and perspectives as they apply to the study of a particular year or decade. Topics will vary from semester to semester. This course may include discussion sections depending on available funding. Some versions of this course need four in-class contact hours because of the extensive use of media.

At the end of the autobiographical notes to his Notes of a Native Son (1955), James Baldwin writes, “I want to be an honest man and a good writer.” Remembered as a writer and activist who told the truth passionately in essays, novels, plays, and poems, Baldwin delivered piercing critiques of American liberalism and the failed promises of US-American democracy. The American Studies scholar and artist Thulani Davis remembered James Baldwin as “one of those rare figures in literature and history, a man who was truly engaged in all the issues of his time.” In this course, we will read Baldwin—against a backdrop of the social, political, and cultural moment of 1953-1974—to trace his development of thought. We will put Baldwin in conversation with his contemporaries, including Marlon Brando, Miles Davis, Lorraine Hansberry, Jackson Pollock, Nina Simone, and others, to explore the following themes: the artist as what Baldwin called “the disturber of the peace”; the reverberations of chattel slavery and American apartheid; religion and the prophetic voice; the blues as metaphor; the problem of white innocence; the meaning of home and exile; art as a tool for reconfiguring the past and the present; and the need for love, hope, and freedom in the world.

Repeat Rules

Requirements class fulfills