Trace the history of the African American novel from Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative to The Garries and their Friends a late 19th century novel. Explore how Black writers transformed genres---slave-narratives, sentimental fiction, gothic, and picaresque--- into powerful tools of resistance and self-fashioning. Through texts by Equiano, William Wells Brown, and lesser known works such as Frank Webb’s The Garries and their Friends (1857) and Thomas Detter’s Nellie Brown, or the Jealous Wife (1871), and others, we’ll examine literature as archive, protest, and art. Join us in uncovering the roots of Black literary innovation and its global impact.
T/R 9:30 am, In person
Spring 2026
Dr. Alonzo Smith
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