African Literature: From Chinua Achebe to Afrofuturism

Catalog description

This course will be an exploration of the major writers and diverse literary traditions of the African continent. We will examine various elements (genre, form, orality, etc.) across a variety of political, social, and literary categories (colonial/postcolonial, modernism/postmodernism, gender, class, literary history, religion, etc.). We will also address issues such as African literature and its relationship to world literature and the question of language and of translation. Writers to be discussed will include Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Kamel Daoud, Tayeb Salih, and NoViolet Bulawayo, among others.The class will be structured around the close-reading of passages from individual texts with an attempt to relate the details derived from the reading process to larger areas of significance within the field. Students should make sure to bring their texts to class with them and must be prepared to contribute to class discussions.