Poetry of the Third Space

Catalog description

In this course, students will read work by writers and poets who occupy a "third space" between worlds, cultures, and/or languages, with special emphasis on work that raises questions about identity, nationhood, and race, and whose work demonstrates a range of different Englishes. The reading list will include Ladan Osman, Noor Ibn Najam, Fatimah Asghar, Suheir Hammad, alongside essays by Gloria Anzaldua, Momina Masood, and Anne Carson. Students will spend time close reading works that stretch the English language, mutate it, break it, and make it anew to prioritize voices that have historically been excluded from its center.