English 190

Description

Deference to the instincts of a community serves as final arbiter in much intellectual and political work: when, for example, the linguist Noam Chomsky defines a the syntax of a language as the “instincts of a native speaker.” Yet as that framing indicates, discourses of “community” can also traffic in contested sociological categories, especially those relating to race, ethnicity, and nativity. In queer and trans spaces, meanwhile, “community” appears both as the cherished goal of cultural practice and as its enabling premise. This class asks how these questions shape our understanding of literature and culture. Building in work in critical race studies, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology, we will ask both how distinct literary communities develop theories and practices of community, test the utility of a generalizable theory of community, paying attention especially to queer critiques of community-based movements by writers like Stephen Best, Jodi Dean, Lee Edelman, and Miranda Joseph. Other readings will include Sarah Ahmed, David Eng, Michel Foucault, Jillian Hernandez, C. L. R. James, Immanuel Kant, Colleen Lye, Fred Moten, José-Esteban Muñoz, Amber Musser, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan.