Black Global Cities
ENGL 375
Fall 2021 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
AFAM 375, AMST 375 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: African Studies, African Studies Minor |
In this course, we will analyze representations of cities and Black urban modernity in Afro- diasporic literature of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Placing special emphasis on the global hubs of London, Cape Town, Kinshasa Lagos, New York, Marseilles, and Kingston, we will ask what makes these former imperial sites Black global cities? We will read literary works on and from Black Global Cities alongside sociological texts on urbanization, globalization and discuss the extent to which literary representations either collude with or challenge dominant national and transnational narratives about Black urban modernity. Although each week's readings will focus on a different location, we will approach these locales as nodes in larger global networks of people, texts, and goods rather than as discreet, bounded places. To this end, we will trace how histories of racial formation move across borders and are transposed onto different spaces, and to what effect. Authors we will read include: Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Gabeba Baderoon, Petina Gappah, Kei Miller, and Teju Cole. We will also watch films such as Girlhood (2014), Black Panther (2018), The Harder They Come (1972), Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens (2011), Welcome to Nollywood (2007). |
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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: (AFST-MN)(ENGL) |
Major Readings:
Readings: Teju Cole, EVERY DAY IS FOR THE THIEF (Random House)
Assia Djebar, WOMEN OF ALGIERS IN THEIR APARTMENT (University of Virginia Press; New Ed edition (July 29, 1999)
Marlon James, A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS (Riverhead Books 2015)
Petina Gappah, ROTTEN ROW (Faber and Faber 2016)
Doreen Massey, SPACE, PLACE, AND GENDER (University of Minnesota Press 1994)
Claude McKay, BANJO (Mariner Books)
Sam Sevlon, LONELY LONDONERS (1956) (any edition)
Paul Beatty, THE SELLOUT (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2015)
(A course packet including other texts for the course will be made available for students. Many of our texts will also come from the African Cities Readers which are available online for free)
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Examinations and Assignments:
Exams/Assignments: Weekly (2pp.) course blog; two medium-length essays (5-7pp.); one syllabus-entry assignment (5pp), and one longer research paper(12-15pp.). |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Additional Requirements: This course fulfills the Literatures of Difference requirement and contributes to the American Literature, Race & Ethnicity, and Theory & Literary Forms concentrations of the English major. |
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