Want to read literature as a way of learning about how race works? Courses in this path allow you to go into depth with how writers in different time periods and different places have used literature to explore and challenge racialized identities.
If you want to follow this path, look for these courses next semester:
ENLS 101.01 Ways of Reading: Black Women’s Sight and Sound TR 1-2:20pm Emerald Rutledge
ENLS 101.02 Ways of Reading: Black Women’s Sight and Sound TR 2:30-3:50pm Emerald Rutledge
Black women writers have a long and robust literary tradition featuring sharp, critical analyses of our societal conditions, complex representations of Black womanhood and gender expression broadly, and compelling experiments in mixed-medium creative production. From Angelina Weld Grimke, Ann Petry, Dorothy West, and Toni Morrison, to Nella Larsen, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, and Alexis De Veaux, Black women writers insist on giving life and voice to their own narratives!
Black Women’s Sight and Sound will consider the African American literary tradition from the perspective of Black women and gender expansive writers and cultural workers. Pairing literary texts with music and film, we will explore the range and depth of their thematic contributions and socio-political criticism across the 20th and early 21st centuries. AHLG ARHC FRST W2
ENLS 203.01 Intro to Race & Lit: Racial Horror MW 3-4:20pm Jeremy Chow
“Racial Horror” addresses the connections among the Gothic, white supremacy, and the art of creators of color. We will seek to use this concept, largely borrowed from film and media studies, to explore its relationships to other fictional texts in our present moment and historically. Students will likewise reflect on how different artists of color (Black, Latine, Indigenous/Native, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.) employ this genre for different ends. ARHC FRST RPI W2
ENLS 221 01 Intro to African American Lit MW 1:30-2:50 pm Emerald Rutledge
Provides a selection from across the vast array of examples collected under the inadequate rubric “African American Literature.” We’ll read poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and drama in order to understand how a group of people who have been written out of American history and culture write themselves back into these stories. ARHC DUSC RPI W2
ENLS 239.01 Reading Race, Gender & Sexuality MW 1:30-2:50pm Erica Delsandro
The social constructions of race, gender, and sexuality that saturate western society today were taking shape one hundred years ago during the modernist period. Modernism on the Margins creates a transhistorical conversation between modernist literature from the first decades of the 20th century and contemporary literature from the beginning of the 21st century. Novels and poetry take center stage as we examine the political investment of literature as it recognizes, examines, and ultimately challenges oppressive and inequitable constructions of race, gender, and sexuality. ARHC RPI W2
ENLS 268.01 Jewish-American Lit & Film MW 1:30-2:50pm Or Rogovin
Jewish American writers and film makers have made tremendous contributions to American national culture. Their works have also defined and reconsidered Jewish identity in a democratic and secular society. Jewish texts not only explore the life experiences of Jews from the early immigrants who settled in the lower east side of New York to the present, but have become integral to American culture at large. The course will study these sometimes contrary ambitions as well as the internal tensions of Jewish identity through a wide selection of 20th century and contemporary literary and cinematic texts. AHLG ARHC DUSC FRST RPI
ENLS 290.01 Ethnic Show Business TR 10-11:20am Meenakshi Ponnuswami
When it comes to racism, there’s truly “no business like show business.” From medieval times to the present, the entertainment industry has eagerly capitalized on popular prejudices, fears, and voyeurism by creating sensational figures like Uncle Tom, the Hottentot Venus, Pocahontas, and more. Some of these figures have become intensely cherished icons (Babar the elephant); others have found their way into sports logos and team merch (the Washington Redskins mascot); all too many have played a role in justifying hatred and holocausts (Shylock). How have contemporary entertainment arts responded to this history? Do ugly old stereotypes ever actually disappear? Do they simply taken new forms, like Aunt Jemima’s image on the pancake box? Our course will explore the legacy of ethnic show business and consider the backlash that contemporary artists have faced as they’ve protested and reinvented this legacy. ARHC FRST
ENLS 311.01 Race, Romance and Historical Fiction TR 1-2:20pm Elena Machado
Foundational romances are national origin stories that depict an alliance between “ideal” patriotic citizens who embody whiteness, wealth, and heteronormativity. Contemporary writers of color in the US offer counter-narratives about marginalized subjects, love stories that challenge nation-state norms of belonging and attempt to envision other political futures. We’ll be reading excerpts from canonical romances, which may include Dixon’s The Clansman (1905) and DuBois’s Dark Princess (1928), alongside contemporary banned books like Ashley Hope Perez’s Out of Darkness (2015) and Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021). Our theorization of historical romance as a literary genre will be informed by the scholarship of Doris Sommer, David Scott, and others. ARHC, RPI, W2
ENLS 393.01 Theatre & Black Power TR 2:30-3:50pm Meenakshi Ponnuswami
What role do the arts play in the fight against injustice? Can theatre change the hearts and minds of people in power? Can it help people who have no power organize themselves into a force for change? Many such questions confronted idealistic young African Americans in the 1950s and 60s, a period of fiery political and social movement and immense creativity. Focusing on the theatre and performance arts of the era, as well as music, pop culture, and comedy, our course will introduce students to the history and politics of the Black Power movement. We will study the major events of the period, focusing on key players, concepts, and strategies, including Malcolm X, debates concerning non-violent resistance, the Black Panthers, and the Black Arts Movement. By exploring this history, we will examine how profound social and political change can begin to take shape. ARHC RPI
Other courses recently offered or expected to be offered in this path include:
- Remix: Black Literature and Music (ENLS 101)
- Intro to Multiethnic Literatures of the US (ENLS 108)
- Asian American Literature (ENLS 213)
- Immigrant Fiction (ENLS 213)
- US Latino/a Literature (ENLS 214)
- Latinx Theatre (ENLS 217)
- Invisible Man: Ralph Ellison’s Family Reunion (ENLS 219)
- Melville, Faulkner, Morrison (ENLS 219)
- Ethnic Comedy (ENLS 222)
- Caribbean Literature (ENLS 227)
- Jewish American Comedy (ENLS 229)
- Reading Race, Gender and Sexuality (ENLS 239)
- Black Lives, 1500-1800 (ENLS 261)
- Women Writers of Color (ENLS 288)
- Affrilachia: Regional Lit, Race, & Power (ENLS 290)
- Introduction to South African Literature (ENLS 290)
- James Baldwin (ENLS 302)
- US: Fever, Fantasy, Desire (ENLS 306)
- Banned Books and Latinx Literature (ENLS 311)
- Queer Filipino/x American Lit (ENLS 311)
- Race and Gender in the 18th Century (ENLS 320)
- Black Experimental Literature (ENLS 324)
- Race, Embodiment, & Imagining the Early Modern Globe (ENLS 350)
- Indigenous Literature (ENLS 397)