ENGLISH380S

This course will examine the novels and essays of James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, focusing on a range of topics: blackness, gender, sexuality, the relationship between race, religion, and nation, and the relationship between anguish and hope. While considering the differences between these authors, we will explore how Baldwin and Morrison converge on a set of ethical and existential themes and concerns. In particular, the course will focus on a shared 'ethics of haunting,' a sense that a better future relies on our capacity to remember, mourn, and be unsettled by forms of racial and gendered violence that mark the past and present.

No Special Consent Required

(CCI) Cross Cultural Inquiry, (EI) Ethical Inquiry, (ALP) Arts, Lit & Performance, (CZ) Civilizations