THEORY AND WRITING: BLACK THOUGHT in Spring 2021 (CL2085)

This course focuses on literary and cultural forms of Black resistance, a stance that critiques the historical processes of slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism. It also clears an alternative space for the emergence of marginalised, hybrid identities. We will study foundational Black theoretical works in English and French in tandem with a YA (Young Adult Fiction) novel in ways that encourage writing and research about theory and literature. No prerequisites. Examines the major tenets, philosophical perspectives, and critical orientations of literary theory from Plato and Aristotle to the present. Students study critical texts from literary and non-literary disciplines, schools, and voices that have come to impact the Western theoretical canon, including psychoanalysis, Marxism, Russian formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, queer theory, new historicism, and post-colonialism.