Department of Religious Studies

This course considers African American literature through the prism of religion. Indeed, it considers African American literature as a place where religion — as it dovetails with race, gender, sexuality, and politics — is investigated and, moreover, artistically experimented with. After surveying in the opening weeks of the course, the birth of an African American literary tradition in the late 18th and especially the 19th century, the bulk of the course takes up the writings of Toni Morrison for their exploration of “black faith” or practices of creative endurance under conditions of duress. Possible Morrison novels that we will engage are Sula, Beloved, Song of Solomon, Paradise, or Home.