FRE 662 - Black Voices in French Literature: The Négritude Movement, Ex-pats in Paris and The Harlem Renaissance

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Black Voices in French Literature begins with the history of The Négritude Movement. This artistic, literary, political movement of the 1930’s through the 1950’s was started by French-speaking African and Caribbean intellectuals living in Paris as a protest against colonial rule and assimilation. Black Ex-pats from the United States, living in Paris at this time, such as James Baldwin, are also included in this course as their narratives on the Civil Rights Movement intertwine with the political writings of Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor. These authors were greatly influenced by the Harlem Renaissance, the intellectual, social, artistic movement in Manhattan of the 1920’s and 1930’s. This course compares and contrasts these three movements to underscore how they joined together to learn from one another and to assert their cultural identity.