Harlem on My Mind: Harlem Renaissance Li

This course explores the cultural contexts and aesthetic debates surrounding the Harlem or New Negro literary renaissance, 1920s to 1930s. Through fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork, we will consider the movement within the context of American modernism and African American cultural history, focusing on the relationship or tension between art/literature and socio-political change.  Topics considered include: patronage, passing, primitivism, and the problematics of creating a “racial” art in/for a community comprised of differences in gender, class, sexuality, and geographical origin. In the summer of 2026, we will work with the Alexander Gumby Collection of Negroiana at the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library to think through the era’s cultural history and the impact of different archival media on its historiography.