1. Harlem Renaissance Themes for Analysis

2. Double-Consciousness African-Americans’ struggle to claim a distinct cultural identity and yet be seen as American Obstacles: discrimination, stereotypes, lost African heritage, White approval/disapproval Essays: “Song of the Seventh Son,” “Criteria of Negro Art,” “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” Why is integration and assimilation different for African-Americans as compared to European immigrants? And as always, look for how this discussion is still present or important today.

3. New Negro Identity Primitivism – Modernism creates an interest in the exotic and primitive. The use of African settings, images, and symbols attracts whites and fulfills a desire to search for the roots of a lost heritage. How did this new identity seek to overcome double- consciousness? Did it succeed? Why or why not? Seeks to obliterate old stereotypes Obligation to present the beauty and truth of African- American life Promote racial pride Through integration and contact of the white and black upper classes new understanding will emerge Essays: “The New Negro Identity,” “The Criteria of Negro Art,” “When the Negro was in Vogue” And as always, look for how this discussion is still present or important today.

4. The Purpose of African-American Art “All Art is Propaganda” Dubois, Locke, and others criticize all Black art that doesn’t portray African- Americans positively Seek to undue the damage done by years of racial stereotypes Essays: “The Criteria of Negro Art,” “The New Negro Identity” Find examples of poems that expose the effects of discrimination, combat racial stereotypes and promote pride and activism in the first section of your packet. “True Negro art” must resist the urge “towards whiteness.” Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and others look towards folk music and stories to represent a more authentic racial identity Essays: “When the Negro was in Vogue,” “How it Feels to Be Colored Me,” “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” Find examples of this more “authentic” identity in some of the poems in the second section of your packet. And as always, look for how this discussion is still present or important today.