Research-oriented and designed for upper-division English majors. Intensive examination of critical approaches, literary theory, or a special topic in literary and cultural studies. Topics vary from semester to semester. Students should consult the department's "Announcement of Classes" for offerings well before the beginning of the semester.

This course will explore a central question: Is contemporary African literature an ongoing queer drama? Students will become familiar with recent debates in African literature and African Queer Studies about where and how “queerness” resides in the genre. We will pay attention to the dynamic approaches that scholars have taken to the meaning of “queer drama” beyond a formalist understanding of drama as plays. Instead, we will consider alternative iterations on the theme including the existential drama of colonial intrusion, the kinship drama of literary genealogies, the public drama of celebrity, and the intermedial drama of plural selves. In addition, the course will consider these scholarly debates alongside the works of writers such as Dambudzo Marechera, Akwaeke Emezi, Zahra Patterson, and Binyavanga Wainana. We will examine these works as case studies to see how they contribute to these debates or model new theories altogether that reshape our understanding of African literature and queerness.

Requisites

• English 100 is prerequisite to English 190.

Repeat Rules