Studies in African American Literature (366-0-21)
Topic
Black Speculative Fiction
Instructors
Justin L Mann
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 3-410: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
In this course, students will engage the archive of contemporary black speculative fiction, including works by Samuel Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Victor LaValle, Colson Whitehead, and N.K. Jemisin, to interrogate the possibilities and limits of the Black radical imagination as it appears in fantasy, horror, graphic fiction, and other genres. Students will read narrative fiction written after the Black Arts Movement to investigate what the speculative offers in terms of thinking about black life, worlds, and futures. The course argues that speculative works—both narrative fiction and theoretical writing—invite readers to think beyond the boundaries of known realities to see new modes of being in the world. Our study will concern texts written in the contemporary, but students will be invited to consider how contemporary manifestations of the speculative and radical necessarily speak across time and space into both past and future manifestations/imaginaries of black experiences, embodiments, and identities.
Teaching Method
Seminar style discussion.
Evaluation Method
Weekly assignments, presentation, final project.
Class Materials (Required)
Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist
Morales and Baker, Truth: Red, White, and Black (comiXology recommended);
N.K Jemisin, The Fifth Season
Victor LaValle, Destroyer (comiXology recommended)
Texts will be available at: Campus Bookstore.
Class Attributes
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity