HC 434H/421H- African American Writers and Artists in France (1918-1970)

Professor: Corinne Bayerl

4.00 credits

  • CRN 32263: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00-3:20 PM @ CHA 201

This class will focus on the vibrant African-American communities that emerged in Paris and Marseilles between the end of WWI and the 1970s and included writers and artists such as Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker, Claude McKay, Jessie Fausset, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin. We will discuss why these artists and writers chose to live in France as expatriates, in which ways they impacted both French and American culture, and we will consider their perspectives on race relations back home and in their adopted country. For each of these writers their exile in France was a transformative experience, and we will explore how it shaped their lives and artistic expression.

Some of the more specific questions that will guide our readings and discussions will include the following:
• How did the experience of African-American troops fighting in WWI in France shape the image of France as a particularly welcoming place for black Americans? How did it contribute to the fleeting myth of France as a ‘colorblind’ country?
• What did the role of France as a colonialist power mean for how these exiles portrayed their adopted culture?
• In which ways did the writings of African-American expatriates lend a new perspective to the question of what it means to be an (African-) American?
• In which ways could the respective expatriate experiences of black and white Americans in France be said to unite and/or to separate these two groups?
• In which ways does the setting of fictional texts in France allow African-American writers to lend expression to experiences different from those in an American setting?
• What was the particular contribution of expatriate African-American writers such as James Baldwin to the American Civil Rights movement?
 

Graduation Requirement:  This class will fulfill an Arts and Letters Colloquium and the Global Perspectives (GP) cultural literacy requirement.  If a student already has completed an Arts and Letters Colloquium, this course will fulfill both of the following requirements: an Elective Colloquium and the Global Perspectives (GP) cultural literacy requirement.