English 238 - Spring, 2012

Special Topics in Literary Theory

Class Information

Instructor: Heard Mollel, Danielle
CRN: 72656
Time: W 3:10-6:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Later American
Focus: Other National, Theory

Description

Black Cultural Theory



This course explores the theory produced from within the study of Afro-diasporic identities and cultures, theories of identification, subjectivity, and consciousness particularly as they relate to modernity. During the semester, we will consider how black cultural critics have responded to historical phenomena, contemporary dilemmas, European and white American philosophy and theory, as well as other black theorists and movements of black critical thought. Beginning with Du Bois’ seminal text The Souls of Black Folk, we will examine how black cultural critics have theorized issues such as identity, radicalism, justice, colonialism, diaspora, history, gender, sexuality, community, speech, emotion, music, humor, and art over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While the sequence of texts we read will be divided by sub-themes such as these, the overarching question of “what is blackness” holds these pieces of cultural theory together and shapes our line of inquiry.

Grading

Based on oral presentations, participation, and an article-length final paper.

Texts

The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois Reader, W.E.B. Du Bois, Eric Sundquist, ed.
In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, Fred Moten
The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, Harold Cruse
The Black Atlantic, Paul Gilroy
In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era , Richard Iton