Honors Learning Community for Fall 2026: African American Culture and the Arts with Intro. to Literature

Honors Learning Community for Fall 2026:

African American Culture and the Arts WITH Introduction To Literature

Professors Will Crawford and Madhuri Deshmukh 

W 6:00PM-7:15PM, 7:30PM-8:45PM, Ray Hartstein Campus, plus online 

Register for both EGL 129 HY5 (CRN: 11985) and HUM 124 HY5 (CRN: 11986)

Gen Ed: Humanities (x2), U.S. Diversity Studies

Fulfills the Honors Core Seminar Requirement for the Honors Scholar Designation

Description: In this learning community, we will use a historical framework to analyze the current backlash against critical race theory and being “woke,” as well as book banning, and other forms of silencing as it relates to the resurgence of White nationalism. While there is a long history of anti-Blackness, White violence, and erasure in this country that precedes and contextualizes the current surge we are experiencing, we will explore the continuity that literary works and pop culture, ranging from film, art, TV shows, advertising, and music, add to the discussion of racism and Black resistance in America. The course will analyze racialized oppression, exclusion, and the ways that Black movements have challenged, resisted, and overcome white supremacy, erasure, and violence in the struggle for justice and freedom. We will read and view works by artists such as Isabel Wilkerson, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, August Wilson, Douglas Turner Ward, John Jennings, Faith Ringgold, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Nina Simone, Rapsody, KRS-1, Public Enemy, and Kendrick Lamar. These works will provide us with a framework to investigate and question the way race is understood and constructed in contemporary culture and how the Black imagination has been used as a tool of empowerment and liberation.

The class will be in a hybrid format with one evening-per-week in-person at the Ray Hartstein campus (Skokie), plus online content.

Email Professor Will Crawford with any questions.