English 190

Book List

Broom, Sarah: The Yellow House; Butler, Octavia E.: Parable of the Sower; Lovelace, Earl: The Dragon Can't Dance; Smith, Zadie: White Teeth

Other Readings and Media

Course Reader with historical, theoretical, and fictional texts by writers including: Zora Neale Hurston, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Stuart Hall, Achille Mbembe, Paul Gilroy, Hazel Carby, and Saidiya Hartman.

Films will include Touki Bouki (dir. Djibril Diop Mambety); Atlantique (dir. Mati Diop) and visual albums by the Knowles sisters.

*Please consult the instructor before purchasing course texts.

Description

This research seminar explores black postcolonial cultures with an emphasis on texts that engage creatively with spatial constraint and possibility. Readings in theories of postcoloniality and diaspora as well as studies in questions of space, place, and geography will accompany close examination of novels, films, and music. Adapting to pandemic conditions, we'll focus on fewer cases studies than usual, create research "hubs" around particular concepts and figures, and have a few options for the final project. You'll still write weekly, do in-class workshops, and build incrementally toward a final, independently developed and significant piece of work that will emerge out of your engagement with the theoretical and aesthetic ideas you encounter in class.