ENGL 103 A17: Case Studies in Research:

O. Okome

How does research matter to reading and understanding literature, broadly conceived? In this course, we will pursue literary research through one or more case studies in literature, print texts, and/or other media and their effects. Research helps us to understand texts in particular locations, histories, contexts, and debates. Students will learn about, and put into practice, stages in a research process, from identifying a research question or problem, to finding and evaluating useful supplementary materials, and learning about how to place their ideas in conversation with the knowledge they build from research.

The research focus for this class will be structured around the discourse of race. European discourses of racial categories have been a significant aspect of the history, content and criticism of modern African literature in the 20^th and 21st centuries. Students who take this course will study race as a discursive category, using modern African literature as the research template. The course will interrogate the role race played and is playing in defining the essence of African literature and the African subject/body in this debate.