Afro-Surrealism
AFAM 226
Spring 2019
| Section:
01
02
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| Crosslisting:
ENGL 229 |
Amiri Baraka coined the term "Afro-Surreal" to describe the writer Henry Dumas's "skill at creating an entirely different world organically connected to this one." In his 2009 "Afro-Surrealist Manifesto," D. Scot Miller builds on Baraka's observations and distinguishes Afro-Surrealism from Afrofuturism in the former's concern with the "RIGHT NOW." Indeed, in the "right now" of 2018, Afro-Surrealism seems to be having a moment, with the success of films like "Sorry to Bother You" and "Get Out," the musical and filmic work of Donald Glover/Childish Gambino, the visual art of Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley, and the literature of Paul Beatty and Colson Whitehead, among others. This course will examine this contemporary resurgence of the Afro-Surreal, and trace its echoes in black popular music, in the work of African American literary figures like Dumas, Toni Morrison, Bob Kaufman, Ralph Ellison, Jean Toomer, and Zora Neale Hurston, and through its African and Afrodiasporic foundations in the work of artists inspired by Léopold Senghor's Négritude movement. All of these artists "distort reality for emotional impact," as Miller puts it, and we will aim to connect these distortions of the "right now" to the material reality of life under regimes of anti-blackness and racial oppression that these Afro-Surreal works lays bare. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AFAM |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Reading list will be available at R J Julia
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two written essays of progressively increasing length and a creative final project. Short written reading responses and in-class presentations. |
| Instructor(s): Hayman,Casey Times: ..T.R.. 10:20AM-11:40AM; Location: CAAS LOUNG; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 4 | | |
| | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 5 | FR: X |
| SECTION 02 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Same as Section 01 Above |
| Examinations and Assignments: Same as Section 01 Above |
| Instructor(s): Hayman,Casey Times: ..T.R.. 08:50AM-10:10AM; Location: CAAS LOUNG; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 3 | | |
| | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 4 | SO: 6 | FR: 6 |
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