History, Identity, and Difference: Literature that Matters and Writing that Works
We will explore how select literature written in English has grappled with questions of history, identity, and difference from the early twentieth century to the present. Developing strategies for analyzing, enjoying, and understanding literature, we will examine how literary texts engage with historical, political, and cultural concerns, including gender, sexuality, racialization, colonialism, slavery and its legacies, war, psychiatry, trauma, and more. Examining different literary genres including poetry, fiction, essays, and memoir, we will consider how writers have drawn upon and transformed the formal qualities of these genres to address charged subject matter. Exploring the texts’ historical contexts, we will compare, contrast, and debate authors, literary movements, and issues across history to forge productive conversations about how and why literature mattered in the past and matters to us now. A variety of texts and topics will encourage engaging discussions: Identity Matters?: Poetry, the Poet, and Questions of the Self; Letters and Legacies: The Harlem Renaissance to Now; Writing and Remembering Historical Trauma: Representing the Great War; “An ordinary mind on an ordinary day”: Modern Fiction and the Narration of Consciousness, and more.
Class time will be dedicated to sharing, exploring, and learning from our cognitive and emotional responses to the literature; developing skills in analysis, close reading, and critical thinking; acquiring a vocabulary of critical terms for literary analysis; developing research skills; considering the historical, social, and intellectual contexts in which the literary works were produced while reflecting on their relevance now; developing strategies for effective writing; honing your own writing voice; and self-reflecting on processes of reading and writing. These practices will help you read, think, and write more effectively about anything. The seminar emphasizes class discussion and peer learning, student participation, regular writing and reflection, and the pleasures of academic community.
Authors will include bell hooks, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, David Chariandy, Virginia Woolf, Pat Barker, and more.
Course Delivery: This course is taught in person, but will include some online engagement to provide more opportunities for student interaction while maintaining social distancing.