English

This course introduces students to the concept and literary history of transnational writing throughout the hemispheric Americas by examining a pivotal period of the nineteenth century. By 1850, slaveholding societies across the Americas were booming, giving rise to imperial dreams that decisively shaped the future of the world. Pro-slavery leaders envisioned an expansion of slavery that would create a new global empire around the Gulf of Mexico, an idealized hub of exchange linking Atlantic and Pacific, Amazon and Mississippi. We will consider how writers portrayed both the global webs of political and economic interests that set these dreams in motion and the anxieties about race and revolution by the enslaved that troubled them. How did these writers contest or unsettle grand expansionist visions? How does their artful writing change our understanding of apparently national conflicts like US westward expansion, the US Civil War, the Cuban War of Independence, or the Mexican Revolution? To pursue these questions, our course will survey portions of contemporary histories as well as primary documents from the period to understand the broader sweep of the century. We will explore how the central literary works reimagine and grapple with processes such as the transatlantic slave trade, revolutions, wars, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, and exile.
FULFILLS HUMANTIES REQUIREMENT. UNDER REVIEW FOR CONCEPTUALIZING DIVERSITY, AND GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING REQUIREMENTS. MEETS ENGLISH PRE-1900 REQUIREMENT

While the immediate focus of this course will be directed toward the contemporary Hip Hop and Spoken Word Movements, we will engage the contemporary moment as part of an African American cultural legacy that is built upon a bedrock of oral tradition. We will consider the significance of orality in crafting and cultivating the forms, styles, and content of African American cultural expression. Examining oral expressions that range from music to public speeches, this course positions the spoken word as central to understanding the complex issues of identity, culture, and politics that shape the African American presence in American society.
FULFILLS HUMANITIES & CONCEPTUALIZING DIVERSITY. Counts toward AFS major/minor.