Caribbean Poetry and Cinema: "Fields of Islands" in an Open Sea
ENGL 274
Spring 2018 not offered
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| Certificates: Civic Engagement |
It is a longstanding colonial trope to render the Caribbean as a space outside of time, outside of history, perpetually under the sun and, were it not for machetes, filled with redundantly bursting vegetation. This course will present an array of 20th-century Caribbean poetry and films that challenge this image. We will consider literary and cinematic texts that envision embodiment within alternative, aesthetic temporalities. In particular, we will consider Caribbean poetry and cinema that present radical images of the Caribbean as a "field of islands" in an open, relational sea. And we will investigate the way these texts make use of the figures of sea and plantation and of historical images of slavery, uprising, escape, revolution, and apocalypse. In addition, we will consider the way these texts respond to discourses of nationalism and "underdevelopment." |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENGL)(ENGL-Literature) |
Major Readings:
The final list of poets could include: St. John Perse (Guadeloupe); José Lezama Lima, Nancy Morejón, Reina María Rodriguez (Cuba); Kwame Dawes and Michael Smith (Jamaica); René Depestre (Haiti); Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico); Derek Walcott (St. Lucia); Aimé Césaire and Édouard Glissant (Martinique); and Kamau Braithwaite (Barbados).
The final list of films could include: Memories of Underdevelopment , La Carreta, The Harder They Come, Maluala, Rue case-négres/Sugar Cane Alley, Sucre Amer, Suite Habana, Biguine, Heading South, Jean Gentil, and short films of Santiago Alvarez, Nicolás Guillén Landrián, and Beatriz Santiago Muñoz.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two short essays, one peer-editing written piece/intervention, final research essay |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course fulfills the Literatures of Difference and Theory requirements and contributes to the American Literature, Race & Ethnicity, and Theory & Literary Forms concentrations of the English major. |
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