AAST 248 - Resistance and Voice: Literature of the African Diaspora

First Semester.  This course is a comparative examination of literature written by peoples of African descent internationally. The course will examine the literary expression of peoples of African descent and Africans in the Americas, Europe, South and Central America. Using Paule Marshall’s discussion of “taking [one’s] mouth and [making] a gun,” we will look at the ways in which peoples of African descent write resistance into their literature in creative ways. We will read the work of several authors including, Paule Marshall, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Ama Ata Aidoo, Dorothea Smartt, Kwame Dawes, Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, Amiri Baraka, Suheir Hammad, and Earl Lovelace.

Ms. Gadsby