W.E.B. Du Bois (1868 -1963) Du Bois was a giant of American letters, culture and politics for most of the modern era of U.S. history. He was the first African American to be granted a PhD from Harvard University (1895) and one of the founders of the N.A.A.C.P. He was, by turns, a sociologist, an activist, an essayist, an editor, a novelist, a nationalist, and a prophet of post-colonialism. His early tour de force, The Souls of Black Folk was published hard on the heels of the Supreme Court case, "Plessy v. Ferguson" (1896), that signaled the absolute demise of post-Civil War Reconstruction and the inauguration of America's "modern" period of race relations - - apartheid in the South and segregationism in the North. Du Bois joined the Communist Party in 1961, two years before his death in the newly created African nation of Ghana.

For Tuesday, read Chapter 1, "Of Our Spritual Strivings," from The Souls of Black Folk (in the Heath anthology).

Dynamo and Virgin

Henry Adams (1838 - 1918). A few interesting things to consider about Adams: Adams was a member of American political royalty - - the grandson of John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of John Adams. The Education of Henry Adams, from which "The Dynamo and the Virgin" is excerpted, was published privately in 1907 but only released to the public after Adams' death in 1918. Although often read as an autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams omits what some might consider to be very pertinent events in the life of Henry Adams, including the 1885 suicide of his wife, Marian Hooper Adams.

Welcome

This will be the motherblog for our course - - English 528.01 American Literature, 1914 to 1960. Here you'll find copies of our syllabus, announcements, assignments, and any other general information relating to the class. Enjoy!