Introduction to Black Literary Theory

Catalog description

This course will explore key theoretical moves in black literary studies since about 1970. The intent is to think historically and conceptually about the field of black literary studies by exploiting and refusing the distinctions between “theory” and “blackness.” Our work might include studying the following areas: deconstruction, archive, feminism, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, phenomenology, affect/new materialism, queer, disability, performance. In sum, this course is a chance to consider blackness as a point of departure for literary study, and perhaps the reverse—literary study as an engagement with thinking conceptually about blackness.