Spring 2006

SPN 349 • Literature in Translation

Course Description

Millions of Africans from different cultural, religious and philosophical backgrounds Nagï, Bantu, Ashanti, Malé, Fula, Arara, Calabar, Yoruba - survived the violence and terror of the Atlantic middle passage and came to the Américas. This course analyzes the socio-cultural contexts of the African Diaspora in the Américas with a specific focus on the literature of the African Diaspora in the islands of the Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico and Saint Domingue (Dominican Republic, Haiti). One of the main goals of the course is to analyze these literary representations on cultural, social and philosophical levels and the ways they build social and cultural agency in their specific national or diasporic contexts.

The course starts with the Haitian Revolution as a historic/social point of departure which influenced black struggles in the Américas. Later it will focus on specific national contexts and cultural representations moving from national white-Creóle imaginings of black and mulatto cultures and populations to contemporary depictions of Afro diasporic and Afro-Latino identities in the United States. Themes such as gender, sexualities and identity politics, socio-political agency, resistance and negotiation will be analyzed in a realm of literary and cultural texts such as narrative, ethnography, film, documentary and contemporary music.

Grading Policy

4 Essays (20% each) 80% Class Participation 20%

Texts

Autobiografða de un esclavo/Autobiography of a Slave, Juan Francisco Manzano. The Kingdom of this World, Alejo Carpentier The Farming of Bones, Edwidge Danticatt Black Cuban, Black American, A Memory. Evelio Grillo

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