ENG3620 Drama: Race Theory, Wilson, Parks, Lee

This class will discuss August Wilson's opus, The Pittsburgh Cycle: ten plays depicting the life and times of African-Americans in the 20th century, each set in a different decade. Wilson's cycle will be put into conversation with the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks (Venus, Topdog/Underdog, Father Comes Home From the Wars) and the films of Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, 4 Little Girls, Bamboozled). The theoretical framework for analyzing these plays and films will be drawn from race and ethnicity studies, from writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes to bell hooks and Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Credits

4 sh

Course Types

Expression, Literature, Advanced Studies

Course Outcomes

1. Students will:
   1. Analyze in-depth the plays of August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks and the films of Spike Lee, as well as a number of essays by major race theorists/critics of the modern and contemporary age.
2. 2. Consider how the interpretation of drama and film differs from the interpretation of other genres of writing.
3. 3. Interpret texts both in discussion and in writing through close reading, intertextual analysis, historical contextualization, and through applied theory.
4. 4. Consider the relationship between theories and texts by adopting diverse theoretical lenses to examine the works of these 20th century U.S. artists.
5. 5. Interrogate ideas of “race,” “color,” and “identity” as lens through which to view contemporary U.S. culture.
6. 6. Draw continuities across the plays and films of these three writers and the theories that have shaped contemporary thinking on race and race relations in the U.S.