Literature of the American Civil Rights Movement

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Literature of the American Civil Rights Movement

This seminar will introduce students to selected works of literature (poems, short stories, novels, essays, and works of drama) written approximately between 1955 and 1975 that specifically address America's Civil Rights Movement.  Students will discover how the literature of the period reflects the complex and often tumultuous social climate and how several writers consciously worked to establish a new field of literary inquiry.

Students will be expected to critically engage many of the prevailing and opposing views on the relationship between social equality and cultural production by conducting research, writing essays, and presenting their conclusions orally during the course of the semester.  Ultimately, students will attempt to ascertain if and how the most transformative social movement of twentieth-century America informs our twenty-first century lives.

Dr. Coleman is an Associate Professor of English who received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico.  His teaching interests include contemporary multicultural American literature, African-American literature, creative writing and literature of the human condition.