ENG 225: African American Literature - Gray

ENG 225 African American Literature

Professor Rhonda Gray

                                                                                       Gail Parker                Octavia Raheem

Finding Internal Liberation for External Limitations: African American Literature as a Blueprint for Freedom

The dominant narrative of “The African American Experience” is often aligned with physical and psychological degradation, economic destitution, and social calamity framed within ongoing cycles of violence. However, many African American writers utilize their craft to envision a life that attempts to overcome hardships through characters infused with confidence, hope, curiosity, and love. We will deepen our understanding of the authors’ and their fictional characters’ resilience by reflecting on how they engaged in embodied liberatory practices to support themselves and their communities in light of structural and intersectional oppression. This survey course will explore African American literature across many centuries highlighting individual, communal and systemic wellness through a Black feminist/Womanist lens. The weaving of literature with yoga theories and practices offered by African American female leaders within the fields of health, psychology, cultural criticism, and history provide a unique Black feminist/Womanist analysis of the craft of living a life that is whole, liberatory, and fulfilling.

Professor Rhonda Gray

Rhonda Gray is a Professor of English at Roxbury Community College in Boston, Massachusetts. She teaches courses on rhetoric and composition, literature and cultural studies reflecting research interests in Black feminism, Womanism, American history and culture, and contemplative pedagogy to support a trauma-informed classroom. Within her role as the Honors Program Coordinator (2009-2016), she facilitated the college’s inaugural accreditation of its Honors Program. In 2016, she participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Institute titled “The Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath” where she examined the use of minstrel representations of African Americans in US print journalism. She is the co-author of “Using BEAM to Integrate Information Literacy and Writing: A Framework with Case Studies” (Purdue University Press, 2019). Also, Rhonda was one of a dozen facilitators of a national Book Club supporting the launch of Octavia Raheem’s Pause, Rest, Be: Stillness Practices for Courage in Times of Change (Shambhala Publications, 2022) that blends her work as an English Professor and as a certified yoga instructor. Her current research interests lie at the intersection of Black feminist theories on anger, Womanist activism, and embodied healing of generational trauma. Rhonda is a member of the National Women’s Studies Association and the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition.