In this class we will explore the work of Black Women Writers in an effort to think through the ways that identity and writing practices are inextricably linked. To that end, we will read the following texts: Gwendolyn Brook’s Maud Martha (1953), Toni Cade Bambara’s Gorilla, My Love (1972), Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973), and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2014). Assignments will consist of a close reading analysis, an analytic argument, an open letter, and an anthology project.