So, the essay’s focused thesis will go something like this, “An analysis of (insert your theme or idea) in the work of such writers as author 1, author 2, author 3, author 4, and author 5 reveals how African American literature has shifted from _____ to ________ (or how the focus of African American literature has changed from ____ to ____) through the WWII, Black Arts, and Contemporary periods
The point is to develop a specific, focused, argument that analyzes several texts and periods.
Talk about the changes and development of ideas in African American literature; for example, the way that contemporary writers are approaching questions of Identity or Aesthetics or Art and Politics differently than were writers like Du Bois or Washington, and the way that Morrison’s construction of memory and imagination as a possible ethical response to the pain of history speaks to the fragmentation of identity found in Larsen and Ellison. With that in mind, and focused on a common but changing theme, write an essay in which you examine the changing goals, desires, and styles of African American Literature from the WWII period (realism/naturalism/modernism) to the present. This means, examine the three movements (WWII, Black Arts, Contemporary) we’ve covered in chronological order and describe how each responds to and/or comes out of the one before it, using specific representative authors and texts. To this end, examine the way one particular theme or idea is approached differently by writers of different periods. Look at one (or as many as two—no more) of the following ideas:
Double consciousness and/or identity
Art and politics
Origin / authenticity
Voice /Agency
America (as ideal or reality)
Coming to awareness/knowledge of race/racism
Violence (individual, institutional, or as response to oppression)
The folk (or “the people”)
The role of the artist
The role of women
Sexuality
Masculinity
Black consciousness
Reclaiming history and/or memory
The individual and the community
Audience
