Course Description

37-376 The Atlantic Diaspora: Colonialism, Resistance, Literatures W(3-0) [0.50]

This course examines literatures in English in the Atlantic colonies (selected from among Canada, the Caribbean, the United States, and Latin America) in the context of movements of peoples and cultures from Africa, Europe, and India across the Atlantic Ocean. Discussion will focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts addressing such issues as cross-cultural contacts with indigenous peoples, the slave trade and abolition movements, and the kinds of culture developing in these evolving societies. Texts will be selected from among the rich array of poetry, fiction, memoirs, letters, travel accounts, period histories and ethnographies, autobiographies and folkloric records that formed the literary culture of this period. Attention may be paid to diverse forms of oral and written expression, linguistic changes, the Creole continuum, the evolution of national and racial stereotypes, and religious syncretism. Reading-intensive course. (Offered in even-numbered years.)

Prerequisites: 37-106 or 37-120.

Course Profile

1998-99 Undergraduate Calendar