AP/HUMA 3316 3.00
Diaspora and Gender: Black Women's Writing in the Caribbean, Canada and the United States
This course introduces students to the body of literature being produced by black women writers in the Caribbean, Canada and the United States after the 1970s. The course argues that while black women writers directly engage the particular concerns of their individual societies, their work out of necessity speaks to and across a larger body of writing. In confronting racism and sexism, they (re)define black female identities and engage a critical cross-cultural dialogue about black women’s lives in the Americas.
Using the writings of Caribbean women as its primary focus, the course attempts to locate Caribbean women’s writing within a larger tradition that reads the texts of black women writers as cross-border mediations. As cross-cultural dialogue, these works connect the lives of black women across the diaspora and name empowering alternatives for their survival. Rather than organizing the works of these women geographically, the course attempts, then, to read their writing as part of a historical and literary continuum within the African diaspora in the Americas. This shared diasporic sensibility, the course argues, allows women to recognize their differences, even while it facilitates their meeting through coalition and partnership.