2008-2009 Course Description:
This course challenges the positioning of the African American experience as a dominant referent for black cultures in the Americas by insisting that narratives about black identity have to include Black Canada as a necessary and critical space of interrogation. The course, therefore, expands and redefines the boundaries of North America by examining Canada as a particular but shared American space that facilitates important new discussions about black experiences.

By examining the fictional writing being produced by blacks in Canada, the course offers one way of exploring the necessary intertexts that can help us redefine black experiences in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. It argues that Black literatures in Canada by bringing together multiple black diasporas confront the tensions between home and homelessness, citizenship and exile located within diaspora experiences in general and, more specifically, black experiences in the Americas. While the course begins, then, from an African Canadian perspective, it is very much concerned with articulating the possibility of a transatlantic African diasporic sensibility.

return to top of page

Format:
The course comprises one three-hour seminar over 13 weeks in the winter term.

return to top of page

Required Readings:

AS/HUMA 3315 Course Kit

Edugyan, Esi. The Second Life of Samuel Tyne. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2004. 

Hill, Lawrence. The Book of Negroes. Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2007. 

Hopkinson, Nalo.  Brown Girl in the Ring. New York: Warner Aspect, 1998.

Silvera, Makeda.  The Heart Does Not Bend. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2002.

return to top of page

Suggested Readings

Clarke, George Elliott. Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.

Compton, Wade, ed. Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature.
Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2001.

Walcott, Rinaldo, ed. Rude: Contemporary Black Canadian Cultural Criticism. Toronto:
Insomniac Press, 2000.

The books required for the course are available at the York University Bookstore. A required kit of duplicated readings is also available at the York Bookstore. The books to be purchased separately are marked with an asterisk (*) in the reading list. All other material is available in the course kit.

return to top of page

Essay: This assignment gives you a choice of essay questions engaging the material and discussions covered in the first five weeks of the course.

The Research Project is designed to encourage students to relate the academic discussions raised in the course to the real contexts in which they live. Students will be asked to complete a research paper on a black community, cultural institution, or community leader in Canada. You may, for example, do research on Africville in Nova Scotia or Amber Valley in Alberta; analyze the development and role of Caribana in Toronto or the black church in Nova Scotia; or examine the role of black leaders like Josiah Henson in the development of early black communities in Canada, or the contemporary influence of Michaëlle Jean as Canada's governor general. Students are encouraged to use a variety of academic sources as well as newspaper articles and films.

Film Review: Since the course relies heavily on films as a pedagogical tool, students are asked to evaluate the role of films in their learning. Students are, thus, asked to complete an analytical review of one of the films in the course by May 14, 2009.

Class Participation will be based on attendance in seminars, contribution to discussions and ability to relate seminar discussions to the broader concerns of the course.

return to top of page

Enrolment and Drop Deadlines

Last date to enrol without permission of the instructor        March 18, 2009
Last date to enrol with permission of the instructor            March 24, 2009
Last date to drop course without receiving a grade             April 21, 2009

Last date to sumbit winter term work                                May 21, 2009

return to top of page