Race and American Literature After Civil Rights

In 2025 literature by and about the racially minoritized exists at a paradoxical juncture: institutionalized and censored, feted as an instrument of consciousness-raising and denounced as woke and reverse-racist. In this course we will ask how we got here by exploring how writers of color from the 1960s onwards fought to enter the literary mainstream – a struggle broaching difficult questions about the relation between creative and political aspiration. Would these writers counter stereotype with empowering representation or refuse the burden of racial representativeness? Would they address white readers unfamiliar with racism or non-white readers already acquainted with its realities? And what would it mean for such aspirations to succeed against the backdrop of ratcheting inequality in and across the color line? Authors include Gloria Anzaldúa, Percival Everett, and R.F. Kuang.