This course is a small, faculty-led seminar on the practice and discipline of literary analysis. It is meant for all students who seek an introductory literature course and would like to improve their ability to read and write critically, including those who may wish to major in English. Focusing on the close study of a few works, rather than a survey of many, the seminar will help students develop college-level skills for interpreting literature, while gaining awareness of different strategies and approaches for making sense of literary language, genres, forms, and contexts. The seminar also will develop students’ ability to write about literature and to communicate meaningfully the stakes of their analysis to an audience.

In this course, we'll read the poetry of Langston Hughes, from his early work to his last poems. We'll also take a look at some of his prose and other writings. Our hope is to use the oeuvre of Langston Hughes as a lens with which to view the history and politics of the twentieth century, particularly in the first half, particularly in the English-speaking world. We'll touch on the work of the poet’s contemporaries and predecessors, writers and thinkers in the Anglophone world like W.E.B. DuBois, Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, Countee Cullen, and W.H. Auden, and we'll think about the poetry in terms of form, craft, lyric, culture, the natural world, childhood, the blues, Harlem, witness and resistance, and more, all as made manifest in the poetry of Hughes. Requirements include two four-page essays and one six-page essay, as well as regular attendance and participation in discussion. This class satisfies the Literatures in English requirement for the English major.

Book List:

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad, editor

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills