A Short Course led by Major Jackson and Emily Bernard.
On the eve of the centenary publication of The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes’s debut volume of poetry, we are proud to present, “I, Too, Sing America.” We celebrate Langston Hughes’s life as an essential poet, playwright, memoirist, translator, and central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
A writer who found inspiration in everyday people, their customs and music, Hughes’ evolution as a cultural and political writer inspired generations of writers on multiple continents. This short course will close read his most important and some obscure poems while addressing his significance as an American writer who, along with his contemporaries, first ushered in the possibilities of literature to address the dreams, aspirations, and political freedom of human beings around the globe. In addition, we will also discuss several prose works by Hughes that dramatize his perspectives on the complex dynamics between Black artists and their expanding readerships, consuming audiences, and structures of support in the twentieth century.