ENGL 2055: African American Literature

Vicaria is a brilliant teenager who believes death is a disease that can be cured. After the brutal and sudden murder of her brother, she embarks on a dangerous journey to bring him back to life. Inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster thematically challenges our ideas of life and death. Bomani J. Story, the film's writer and director, crafts a thrilling tale about a family that, despite the terrors of systemic pressure, will survive and be reborn again.

The upstart Bowery Slam Poetry Team, made up of five young African-American, Afro-Hispanic and queer poets, prepares for the national championships. Mentored by a demanding coach who pushes them past their personal boundaries to write from a painfully honest place, the poets break down, break through, and compose their best work ever. Will their soul-searching pieces about police violence and the whitewashing of Black culture be able to compete against choreographed crowd-pleasers for the title?

Two African-American teenage brothers suddenly find themselves on their own after being mysteriously abandoned by their parents. Deeply haunted by the mental and physical abuse inflicted by their father (Wu-Tang Clan’s Cliff “Method Man” Smith), elder brother Daniel (Marcus Scribner, ABC’s Black-ish) is determined to prevent their lives from falling apart.

Oscar winner for Best Picture, Moonlight is a moving and transcendent look at three defining chapters in the life of Chiron, a young man growing up in Miami. His epic journey to adulthood, as a shy outsider dealing with difficult circumstances, is guided by support, empathy and love from the most unexpected places.

One of the most controversial novels of its day, Richard Wright's Native Son (first published in 1940) exposed the injustices of urban African-American life, witnessed through the eyes of Bigger Thomas, whose violent tendencies and moral confusion were the natural result of a lifetime of deprivation. In prison for murder and sentenced to death, Thomas reflects on the circumstances that led to his fate.

Spike Lee's adaptation of the Broadway show "Passing Strange" presents the portrait of a musician as a young man. In 1970s Los Angeles, a talented but rebellious middle-class African-American discovers punk rock. Through the intervention of a sincere choir director, the young man travels to Europe, where his talents blossom, but at the expense of those who care for him. The film is based on the life of musician Stew, who appears as narrator and commentator on his younger, rasher self.

Traces the epic emotional journey of a suburban African-American family as they navigate love, forgiveness, & coming together after a loss—a heartrending story about the universal capacity for compassion & growth even in dark times.

H4 translates Shakespeare's plays, Henry IV parts I and II, into a futuristic Los Angeles to explore political struggles in the black community.

A Black family living in a cramped tenement in 1940s Chicago have a chance to improve their lives via an insurance-policy check, but are in disagreement as to how best to spend the windfall.

Set in rural Louisiana during the Depression, this heartfelt story tells of a sharecropper family struggling to overcome adversity. After stealing to feed his family, Nathan is sent to a prison camp. In their fight for survival, his determined wife and their eldest son hold the family together. Once the boy becomes an adult, he searches for his father but instead discovers manhood.

The wry, incisive debut feature by Cheryl Dunye gave cinema something bracingly new and groundbreaking: a vibrant representation of Black lesbian identity by a Black lesbian filmmaker. Dunye stars as Cheryl, a video-store clerk and aspiring director whose interest in forgotten Black actresses leads her to investigate an obscure 1930s performer known as the Watermelon Woman, whose story proves to have surprising resonances with Cheryl’s own life as she navigates a new relationship.