France Noire: African-American Writers and Artists in France

This class will focus on three African American writers (Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates) and two painters (Henry Ossawa Tanner, Michel Basquiat) who chose to live in Paris.  We will discuss their reasons for living in France as expatriates, their impact on both French and American culture, and their perspectives on race relations back home and in their adopted country. We will explore in which different ways these artists experienced their—in some cases lifelong—time in France as a transformative experience; it enriched their means of expressions as artists and writers, and also lead to a richer understanding of different cultural formations from around the world that may in different ways be traced back to Africa.