Training in writing expository prose. Further instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

This course, which borrows its title from an eponymous 1968 essay by Sylvia Wynter, focuses on what writers and thinkers from the Caribbean can tell us about who we are and how to find out. In our readings and discussions, we will ask: what is culture, and what does it mean to have one? How might talking about culture help us to understand our own identities and histories? What can art tell us about history, and what can history tell us about art? And what is history, anyway? In search of answers to these questions, we will read poetry by Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Lorna Goodison, Velma Pollard, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Dionne Brand; fiction by Erna Brodber, Wilson Harris, and Jamaica Kincaid; and essays by Sylvia Wynter, George Lamming, Maureen Warner-Lewis, and George Beckford, among others. We will also watch films, listen to music, and examine works of visual art. This writing-intensive course is designed to improve students’ skills in both writing and thinking, as well as to cultivate students’ expressive capacities more generally. We will read writing that expresses thoughts, beliefs, and ideas, and produce writing ourselves (both critical and creative) which does the same. As the semester progresses, students will also write and subsequently revise two papers—the first analytic, and the second based on a self-designed course of research.

Requisites

• Previously passed an R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature and Composition. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills