The Old-School podcast is live! Co-hosts Chad and Chi talk about African American authors and the classics—from Revolutionary War-era poets Phillis Wheatley and Jupiter Hammon to the contemporary award winning author Yusef Komunyakaa. Check out season one here.
Enrollment opens in October for AAITI's first course:
"Shakespeare in Harlem" - Spring 2024 - TTh 11-12:30 - 4 units
Offered by: African American Studies and the Art of Writing Program
Instructor: Chiyuma Elliott
Description: This course looks at the complicated and longstanding creative relationships that Black artists have with the world’s most famous playwright by examining 20th century and contemporary African American re-creations of, and responses to, Shakespeare’s plays and poems (particularly Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard III and the “dark lady” sonnets). These creative encounters with Shakespeare are compelling works of art, and interesting also because of what they reveal about the ways African American artists make claims about the nature and meaning of human existence. Additionally, they provide terrific models for storytelling, which we will learn from as we produce our own nonfiction writing. In this course, all written assignments focus on one non-fiction genre: podcasting. One class meeting per week will be devoted to discussion of the readings, and the other will be dedicated to podcast script brainstorming, research, writing and production (including hands-on audio recording and editing, and mini-workshops and tutorials). Throughout the semester, we will use online technical and creative resources to craft compelling audio storytelling that is firmly grounded in scholarly research.