ENGL4880: Topics in African American Lit (71464)

Jenkins, Jerry

TR 9:35 AM

AFAM 4620/ENGL 4880 (T/Th 9:35 am-10:50 am)
Dr. Rafiki Jenkins (Assistant Director, Institute for African American Studies)
 
This course will provide students an opportunity to explore the politics and aesthetics of African American vampire fiction. We will draw upon a variety of theoretical approaches to examine this emerging genre of Black speculative fiction, with a focus on how African American-authored vampire literature interrogates dominant notions of the vampire, immortality, and Blackness in U.S. culture. 
Required Books
  • Jewelle Gomez, The Gilda Stories (1991). ISBN: 978-0-87286-674-4. 
  • Angela C. Allen (editor), Dark Thirst (2004). ISBN: 978-0-7434-9666-7.
  • Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling (2005). ISBN: 978-0446696166.
  • Pearl Cleage, Just Wanna Testify (2011). ISBN: 978-0345506368
  • Jerry Rafiki Jenkins, The Paradox of Blackness in African American Vampire Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2019). ISBN: 978-0-8142-5534-6.
  • Kendra Parker, Black Female Vampires in African American Women’s Novels, 1977-2011: She Bites Back. (Lexington, 2019) ISBN: 978-1-4985-5317-9.