Research Guides: ENGL 110 (Woltag): A Raisin in the Sun: Overview

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This LibGuide is designed to provide resources for your assignment prior to reading A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Use the tabs to find more information on your topics. A suggested way to use this guide:

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An Overview by Imani Perry

Imani Perry is a scholar and the author of Looking for Lorraine , a biography of Lorraine Hansberry biography published in 2018. In this short video Professor Perry gives a brief overview of the plot and major themes from Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun.

Read & Watch

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Call Number: Read online
ISBN: 9780679755333
Read this classic and important play as an online ebook.
Plays of Our Time by Bennett Cerf
Call Number: College of San Mateo Upper Level ; PS634.C4169
ISBN: 9780394406619
Publication Date: 1967
There are 9 plays in this anthology, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Mister Roberts, A Man for All Seasons, and A Raisin in the Sun.
A Raisin in the Sun (Film)
Call Number: Streaming film
Publication Date: 1961
A black family living in a cramped Chicago tenement in the 1940s have the opportunity to improve their social standing via an insurance-policy check, but are in disagreement about how best to spend the windfall. Lorraine Hansberry adapted the script from her hit Broadway play.
Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart: The Life and Work of a Treasured American Playwright
Call Number: Streaming Film
This documentary sheds valuable light on all aspects of Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, including the daunting challenge of securing investment and a venue for this production about a working class Black family, the casting process, artistic debates and finally its public reception.

The film features interviews with the play’s original cast members, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Louis Gossett, Jr. and Glynn Turman, director Lloyd Richards, producer Phil Rose, supporter Harry Belafonte as well as writer Amiri Baraka along with excerpts from the 1961 Hollywood movie.