Studies in African American Literature (366-0-20)

Topic

Black Speculative Fiction

Instructors

Justin Mann

Meeting Info

Parkes Hall 215: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

In this course, students will engage the archive of contemporary black speculative fiction, including works by Samuel Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, 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 interrogate 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.

Evaluation Method

Papers and projects.

Class Materials (Required)

Victor La Valle, Destroyer 1684150558
N.K. Jemisin, Far Sector 1779512058
Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland 0374266778

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration -- Reserved for English and Creative Writing students.