LARTS 368 — Contemporary Black Atlantic Literature

3 credits
Spring
Renée Baron

The focus of this class is Black Atlantic literature published after 2000. Using the image of ships in motion—in between the locales where Africans resettled in the aftermath of slavery—we will expand our understanding of black experience beyond established national and ethnic identities. We will explore the creative strategies these authors share and those they do not in their constructions of black identity. We will investigate the ways in which today’s popular culture (e.g., music) and technology have created opportunities for shared black experience across locales at the same time as we will examine the limitations of those mediums for transnational identity. Moreover, we will consider the manner in which these authors define black autonomy and black freedom in a new millennium.