courses taught

(Image credit: Unknown)

“Truth is often stranger than fiction” is a common maxim to describe the happenings of the world around us. This course focuses on creative nonfiction writing and media that capture these idiosyncrasies. Through reviewing a collection of works of criticism, personal essays/memoir, biography, journalism, and interviews, this course examines different ways of building compelling narratives that bring humanity together by highlighting our individual uniqueness and peculiarities. Together, we will consume, and tell, the stories of others and have robust conversations on why human stories matter. In addition to creating records of experiences, this course also asks to turn our methods of inquiry inward-- how can increased consciousness of the self (our acuities, tastes, and biases) make us sharper thinkers about the world around us? How might understanding the perspectives of others help us better understand ourselves? 

(Image Credit: Enrique Leyvay, Braids, 2021. Digital Photography)

In this course, we will examine the impacts of imperialism and colonization from a global, interconnected, perspective. This course traces the roots of colonialism through Anglophone literature and other cultural productions from South Asia, The Caribbean, and The United Kingdom. While the assigned work is exclusively 20th/21st century, we will spend class time working through primary pre-1850s primary documents. This course will require quite a bit of writing, but it will be personal, reflective, writing– designed to get you thinking and practicing the art of composition. Through this, you will hone your ability to express yourself thoughtfully while pulling from academic, cultural, and artistic sources. At the heart of postcolonial studies is the idea that individual experience is important, self (and community) reflection is critical, and that engaging with one another’s experiences is the key way to understand the ways that colonialism has impacted us all. 

(Image credit: Wangechi Mutu, You Are My Sunshire, 2015. Collage.)

Using space as a metaphor, this course explores how Black feminist theory is built through, and subsequently helps build, both poetry and political writing/theory. Students will become familiarized with academic, popular, and emerging works in Black feminist theory and poetry. Each week covers a specific theme and  includes topics like justice, womanism, queerness, art/visual culture, inheritance, hip hop/music, ecology, and the digital humanities.  This course defines “poetry” broadly in terms of material and genre— there will be a wide variety forms of poetry assigned in this course. This includes traditional poets like Sonia Sanchez, Camille T. Dungy, and Danez Smith, as well as spoken word poets such as Aja Monet and Porsha Olayiwola, filmmakers like Marlon Riggs and Julie Dash, and musicians such as Lauryn Hill and Mos Def.   

(Image credit: Scipio Moorhead, 1773. etching.)

This course follows eighteenth and nineteenth century writings of the Black diaspora in the United States and the places they travel, including the Caribbean, Africa, and the United Kingdom. Central to this course is understanding the contexts in which these figures lived, the history that impacts their lives and how that connects to our present. Important themes through this course include: art, social and class dynamics, environmentalism, print culture, law, gender and sexuality, abolition, and freedom. We will work through a variety of literary and media genres including poetry, biographies, speeches, essays, letters, slave narratives, and periodicals. Course authors include Phillis Wheatley, Maria Stewart, Fredrick Douglas, and David Walker. 

(Image credit: Swank, Eve Album Cover, 2019. Digital Photograph)

Critics have described popular culture as what appeals to the masses and what they take pleasure in doing. Thinking with this definition, this course explores how Black culture became a part of, and significant influence to, broader popular culture. This is a media-focused course— we will engage with a variety of genres, platforms, and modalities to better understand how Black popular culture functions and spreads across the globe. This includes a variety of music, literature, movies, documentaries, and even ‘Black Twitter.’  Course texts include works by scholars Kiese Laymon, Tavia Nyong’o, and Emily Lordi as well as work by musicians such as J.Cole, Beyoncé, Rapsody, and Janelle Monae. This course will prepare students to recognize, analyze, and critique popular culture and its productions. 

(Image Credit: Kehinde Wiley, Shantavia Beale II, 2012. Oil on canvas)

What does it mean to be black in the 21st century? How does the political, social, and cultural climate of the new millennium situate and construct Blackness? Despite differences across geographic locations and origins, socioeconomic statuses, gender identities, and sexual orientations, religions, generations, and education levels, are there any collective experiences in Blackness? How do modern and contemporary literary cultures represent Blackness? In this course, we will examine multiple genres of Black literature—novels, essays, and poetry, as well as music, movies, and 'Black Twitter’ in order to engage these questions. Course texts include works by writers ZZ Packer, Zadie Smith, Kiese Laymon, as well as work by musicians such as J.Cole, OutKast, and Janelle Monae. This course will also explore a number of contemporary cultural critics to analyze and contextualize our understanding of the course works and Blackness in general.