African Diasporas: U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean

Considering the movement of people from Africa to the “New World” beginning with the 15th century to the present, this course examines the character of Black African diasporas in the U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean from a variety of perspectives. Beginning with the effort to define the term Black African diaspora, the course will focus on the following themes: comparative histories of different diasporic cultures; slavery, domination, and resistance; language, gender, culture, and religion; issues of identity; retentions, transformations, hybridity. We will examine historical, literary, cultural, and theoretical texts to analyze, contextualize and interrogate dominant narratives of diaspora and explore the significance of specific cultural productions like literature, music, dance, and cinema. Among the authors to be studied are Franz Fanon, W.E.B. DuBois, Aimé Césaire, Paul Gilroy, Fernando Ortiz, Nicolás Guillén, Nancy Morejón, Kamau Braithwaite, Mary Prince, Frederick Douglass, Toni Morrison, Maryse Condé and Ama Ata Aidoo. (Students will receive credit for CMP 4535 or ENG 4535, not both. These courses may substitute for each other in the F-replacement policy.)