History in Fiction and Fact or  (Race Relations in Fiction and Fact)

This is a class about the relationship between facts and fictions in our understanding of race and relations in the United States, past and present.  We shall explore the similarities and differences between facts and truths in fiction and facts and truths in history and other forms of non-fiction.  We shall explore the different ways in which different writers use facts, sources, evidence, narrative, analysis, and imagination to arrive at historical understanding.  We shall explore the literary dimensions of historical literature and the historical dimension of fiction. The course is designed for history and American Studies students, creative writers, and aspiring humanities teachers, all of whom will get a sense of the variety of ways that we can use (and the variety of ways that we can misuse) literature as primary sources for historical narrative and historical interpretation. Historians and other non-fiction writers interested in experimenting with the form of their writing will get a sense of the approaches and techniques they might borrow from novelists and writers of imaginative non-fiction--and also a sense of the boundaries they dare not cross.