Literature of the Harlem Renaissance

Instructor: Mary Katherine Wainwright
March 7, 9. 1-3 p.m. $500 pesos

The decade of the 1920s is regarded as the decade of experimentation in American literature, art and culture. Nowhere was this experimentation so evident as in Harlem in New York City. While many writers of the 20’s became expats in Paris or created a bohemian culture in Greenwich Village, Harlem became the mecca of black art, literature, and music. After a general introduction to the social forces at work that created the Great Migration to Harlem in 1917, the course will introduce some of the literary greats: Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Angelina Grimke, and others. Poetic and literary forms and themes will be emphasized.

Mary Katherine Wainwright has a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue University. Her dissertation focused on the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. For thirty years she was Professor of Literature at the State College of Florida in Bradenton/Sarasota and has taught at various other colleges and universities including The College of Staten Island, Eckerd College, and the University of South Florida. Her specialties include women in literature, women’s studies, African American literature, and American literature and poetry.
Wainwright has lived in San Miguel since 2009. During that time, she has taught classes in literature and writing at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference and the Lifelong Learning Program and classes in English language skills to Mexican adults at the San Miguel School of English. She is the author of two collections: A Taste of Salt: poetry and En Route: essays (Amazon)