ENGL 130
Direct Action and African American Cultural Texts Spring 2018
Division I Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed AFR 130
This is not the current course catalog

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What sorts of actions become politicized differently when performed by black bodies? How do we map the dimensions of African American direct action when mere eye contact, for example, once constituted an act of defiance against the racial order, punishable by death? How have the methods and aims of African American direct action shifted over time? Where is the line between violence and nonviolence; when does it shift or blur? In this course we will consider how various literary forms give shape and insight into the legacies of African American political gestures and demands for freedom. Forms of cultural production to be examined in this course include slave narratives, memoir, speeches, zines, poetry, op-eds, manifestos, short stories, novels, comics, film, and song. Forms of direct action will include: escape, literacy and print culture, marronnage, campaigns, slow-downs, riots, rebellions, networks of care, strikes, civil disobedience, violence, self-defense, and more. This course contributes to the College’s Exploring Diversity Initiative through discussions of African American political engagement with relations of power and inequality.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3889
Grading: no pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: weekly response writing, four formal writing assignments totaling 20 pp. including an engaged feedback process, two creative assignments
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis
Prerequisites: first-year students who have not taken or placed out of a 100-level ENGL course
Enrollment Preferences: none
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ENGL; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under AFR
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AFR 130 Division II ENGL 130 Division I

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