Details

When:

Where: Resurrection Lutheran Church

Cost: $135.00 for 5 session(s) (includes reading packet)

Type: In Person

Category:

Instructor: William A. Fry a founding member of the Learning Curve faculty
William A. Fry

American Protest Literature

One definition of “protest” is “a document that formally objects to something.” From the Declaration of Independence to contemporary issues, protest has always been a central theme of American literature. Thomas Jefferson once wrote to Abigail Adams, “I like a little rebellion now and then.” In 1915, Jack London wrote, “Comes now the time to make a world.” He further wrote that this world was made by protest authors who “not merely reported human ills, they have proposed the remedy and they will persist until all the world be made beautiful in their image.” Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man (1952), wrote “in this great, inventive land man’s idlest dreams are but the blueprints and mockups of emerging realities.”

Join us for this 5-week survey of some of the greatest pieces of American protest literature by such authors as Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, Tecumseh, Black Elk, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and others.

In reading these authors, we will touch upon many issues in American society: our fight for independence from England, Native American rights, abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, socialism and industry, anti-lynching, poverty, civil rights, Black liberation, feminism and rights of women, Gay liberation, and anti-war.

Loading Map....

Register for Speaking Up (Oro Valley Session)

Online registration has been closed for this class. Please call (520) 777-5817 for information.