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Course Description

Summary

How does one resist the imperative to tell a neat, digestible story about racial identity? What new stories become possible when poets conduct, in Haryette Mullen’s words, “an open-ended investigation into the possibilities of language?” In this advanced literature seminar, we will read works by BIPOC writers who employ innovative methods to question, disrupt, and reimagine narratives of race, with a focus on Black and Asian American experimental traditions. Beginning with Jean Toomer’s 1923 hybrid-genre book Cane, we will travel through a brief history of innovative writing by American poets of color in the 20th Century, before reading some of the genre-defining (and defying) collections of the last few decades, including Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee, M. NourbeSe Phillip’s Zong!, and Bhanu Kapil’s Humanimal. This is an upper-level course with an expectation of substantial previous work studying 20th and 21st Century poetry and/or BIPOC literature. Reading requirements will include an average of one full poetry collection and 1-2 critical essays per week. Students will turn in three response papers and an 8-10 page final essay, with the option to employ experimental or cross-genre methods in said essay.