Texts



Tentative list of texts to be used*:
Theory/Criticism
  • Sigmund Freud The Uncanny
  • Toni Morrison Playing With Darkness
  • W.E.B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk
  • Maisha Wester African American Gothic: Screams from Shadowed Places
  • James Baldwin The Devil Finds Work
Essays/Articles
  • Curren, Erik. “Should Their Eyes Have Been Watching God?: Hurston’s Use of Religious Experience and Gothic Horror.” African American Review. 29.1: 1995. 17-25.
  • Bryant, Cedric. “The Soul Has Bandaged Moments: Reading the African American Gothic in Wright’s ‘Big Boy Leaves Home,’ Morrison’s ‘Beloved’, and Gomez’s ‘Gilda’.” African American Review. 39.4: 2005. 541-553.
  • Nordius, Janina. “Racism and Radicalism in Jamaican Gothic: Cynric R. Williams’s ‘Hame, the Obean Man’.” ELH. 73.3: 2006. 673-693.
  • Shockley, Evie. “Buried Alive: Gothic Homelessness, Black Women’s Sexuality, and (Living) Death in Ann Petry’s ‘The Street’.” African American Review. 40.3: 2006. 439-460.
Slave Narratives & 19th century


  • Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
  • Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
  • Hannah Crafts The Bondswoman’s Narrative
  • Charles Chesnutt The Conjure Woman
Early-Mid 20th century
  • James Weldon Johnson The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
  • Ralph Ellison Invisible Man
  • Richard Wright Native Son
  • Richard Wright Uncle Tom’s Children
  • Selected poetry of Ann Petry
  • Selected poetry of Langston Hughes
  • Chester Himes If He Hollers Let Him Go
Late 20th century – present
  • Ishmael Reed Flight to Canada
  • Toni Morrison Beloved 
  • Selected works by Amiri Baraka
  • Ntozake Shange For Colored Girls  
  • Octavia Butler Kindred
  • Gayl Jones Corregidora
  • Walter Dean Myers Monster
  • Randall Kenan Let the Dead Bury Their Dead
  • Jamaica Kincaid Annie John
  • Robert Fleming Havoc After Dark: Tales of Terror
  • Nalo Hopkinson Mojo: Conjure Stories 
  • Sheree R. Thomas Dark Matter 
Contemporary Film/Music/Etc.
  • Lilies in the Field (1963 film)
  • Juice (1992 film)
  • Tales from the Hood (1995 film)
  • Eve’s Bayou (1997 film)
  • Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror (2006 film)
  • The Illuminati (hip hop concept)
  • Michael Jackson - Thriller (1982 song + music video)
  • Gravediggaz – 6 Feet Deep/Niggamortis (1994 album)
  • Black Star – Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star (1998 album)
  •  Selected songs and videos by Tyler, the Creator (alongside OFWGKTA)
  • Childish Gambino – Bonfire (2012 song + music video)
  • Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit (1939 song) + Nina Simone - Strange Fruit (1965 song) + Kanye West – Blood on the Leaves (2013 song)

*Not all texts will be read in full. Of course, it would require an extensive amount of time to read every African American Gothic text and theoretical rationale pertaining to the genre in just one semester. In most cases, the texts looked at will be shorter excerpts in order to provide students with a wide survey of African American Gothic texts. In essence, the prior list of texts is ultimately a tentative look at possible African American Gothic canonical texts to be discussed and/or read in AFC 279.
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