ENGL 360 X50: American Literature and Culture: Race and Belonging in American Writing

K. Ball

This course will provide an occasion to explore representations of the American experience of race and racism in a range of theoretical and creative work from the 20th and 21st centuries. Though the experiences that racialization precipitates will be our principal focus, the texts we examine by Hortense Spillers, Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, David Marriott, William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, Paul Beatty, Kara Walker, Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele among others will also position us to see how it intersects with other valences of identity formation, including class, gender, and sexuality. At the conclusion of the course, students will present research on topics of their choosing about recent and contemporary events that illuminate the legacy of race relations in the United States.