Time Schedule:
Laura H Chrisman
C LIT 535
Seattle Campus
Offerings vary to cover individual theorists and particular manifestations of cultural criticism and ideology critique.
Class description
This course explores the complex relationships between nationalism, diaspora and transnationalism. Drawing upon the resources of African, black Atlantic, and postcolonial studies, this interdisciplinary course fuses literary analysis, cultural studies, critical theory, political thought and intellectual history. We use an archive from Africa and the Americas to examine the ways that intellectuals, activists and creative writers have articulated migration, empire, race, pan-Africanism, modernity and slavery. We consider not only the connections but also the disconnections that occur through black transnational movement, and attend to the global and comparative dimensions of diaspora, looking here in particular at comparative approaches to black and Jewish experience. We examine the ways in which gender informs the textual archive. Primary materials may include works by W.E.B. du Bois, Dionne Brand, Captain Harry Dean, Manthia Diawara, Brent Edwards, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, Saidiya Hartman, Pauline Hopkins, Zakes Mda, Caryl Phillips, Sol Plaatje, Eslanda Robeson, Michelle Stephens and Richard Wright.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
