AFRICAN AND AFRICAN DIASPORA LITERATURE AND CULTURE

ENGL 379

English language literatures of former colonies, primarily in Africa and South Asia. While scrutinizing the concept of the "postcolonial" and evaluating its many meanings, class will read some of the significant writers of the postcolonial world and attend to the literary traditions that produced them.

AFROAMER 227

Analysis of major works of African American fiction, drama, poetry and autobiography. Attention given to historical, cultural and biographical contexts.

AFRICAN 406

Provides a conceptual focus for the study of various forms of literature from around the African world. Literary forms studied may include novels, drama, poetry, short stories, cinema, and more. Depending on the conceptual focus, texts from a particular region, period, or language may be stressed, or they will coalesce around certain themes, such as modernity, cultural identity, nation building, ideology, globalization, and more.

AFRICAN 605

Introduces foundational texts in the study of modern Africa and the social, political, and economic contexts of the continent's cultural production and productivity. Conceptual explorations of interesting issues such as the African encounter with Europe, anticolonialism, race, racialism, and subjectivity, African and European languages and epistemology, transformations in gendered structures, and the environment, and the circulation and consumption of cultural forms and practices. Examines the long histories and theories of cultural production and practices in Africa, the local/global provenance of forms and styles, and the contexts of their local, national, and global circulation and consumption. Promotes critical thinking by putting like and unlike texts together and considering rhetoric and implied meanings, all in the context of Africa's interactive history with the world in the modern era.

AFRICAN/AFROAMER 813

Historical and critical study of the classics of contemporary African and Caribbean literary drama written in English. Thematic issues include the African encounter with Europe, postcolonial disillusionment and the betrayal of ideals, and also stylistic matters as the relationship(s) between traditional drama and other performance forms, and modern drama written in European languages. Considers theories and critical approaches to understanding the cross-continental drama traditions and their contexts. Examines the long histories of cultural, performance, and theatrical relationships between Africa and the Caribbean and how the relationships have been shaped by race and economics, past and present. Considers and questions conventional claims made by others and your own assumptions; stimulates analytical thinking about identity.