Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man in Context(s)

Full Tuition: $300 — Scholarship options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select.

Instructor: Andrews | Mondays | September 11-October 9 | 6:30-8:30 PM ET | ONLINE (**Note that the date has been changed to begin after Labor Day.)

Since its initial publication in 1952, Ralph Ellison’s first and only completed novel, Invisible Man, has been hailed as one of the greatest works of American literature and a crucial commentary on Black life in the Jim Crow US. Over the course of five weeks, we’ll travel with the nameless narrator through four major phases of his life: his time at an all-Black college in the South; his migration north to work in a factory; his experience with a political party known as The Brotherhood; and his entanglement with underground economies and figures, eventually leading him to build his own lair underground. Each week we’ll work carefully through the language of this dense and allusive novel, while simultaneously discussing important but lesser-known aspects of Ellison’s life that impacted his writing. For example, did you know that before becoming a champion of liberal individualism, he was involved with the Communist Party USA? That he loved reading Herman Melville? That he was one of the earliest adopters of the computer and died with over 10,000 unpublished files on his computer? Or that he worked with Richard Wright and Frederic Wertham to establish The LaFargue Clinic, the first psychiatric clinic for Black people in the US…which was literally underground in a basement!? This reading group will give you a chance to read one of the most important novels written in the last century, while giving you the tools and information to understand it at a deeper literary and historical level. 

Classes are recorded to allow for students to participate asynchronously. If you want to take a class but cannot make the class time, sign up for the asynchronous audit option to follow along on your own. Recordings are password protected and will only be available for the duration of the class and two weeks after it ends.

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We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class, and one full scholarship per person per term. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.

If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, please email us and we will reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After that point, we are able to offer 50% refunds.