Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man won the National Book Award and stunned mid-century readers. This class will consider why it still stuns. Ellison’s lived experience of racism and racial conflicts in 1920s and ‘30s America shapes the story told by an unnamed narrator. Yet it is not a “protest” novel. The narrator says, “I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either.” What is Ellison’s stance? The New York Times reported that Barack Obama modeled his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, on Ellison’s book. Modern Library ranked it 19th among the 20th century’s top 100 novels, a veritable classic. Invisible Man is a long book, but Bryan Sinche—who taught us about Frederick Douglass last year—will guide our reading. And what else are wintry days and evenings for? Join us for three sessions on this remarkable book.
Bryan Sinche (BA, University of Michigan; MA, PhD, University of North Carolina) is professor and chair of English and Modern Languages at the University of Hartford, where he has taught American and African American literature since 2006. Sinche is a scholar of 19th century African American literature and the author of Published by the Author: Self-Publication and Nineteenth-Century African American Literature (University of North Carolina Press, 2024). He has written more than twenty essays and reviews for journals including American Literary History, African American Review, ESQ, Legacy, and Biography and for collections published by Basic Books, Cambridge University Press, and the University of Wisconsin Press. He has edited two books: The Guide for Teachers, a companion to the third edition of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2014), and the first scholarly edition of Appointed: An American Novel (2019), co-edited with Eric Gardner.
Wednesdays, Feb. 4, 11, 18 | 10:30 a.m.–noon | KF Room/Harrison Libraries | $60
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