Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: English

Meeting: 9:25AM - 10:40AM TR (8-JAN-2024 - 19-APR-2024) 

Part of Term: Full Term

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Method of Instruction: Face to Face

Credit Hours: 3

 

Section Max Enrollment: 25

Section Enrolled: 8

Enrollment data as of: 29-APR-2025 3:52PM

 

 

Final Exam: No Final Exam

 

Description: This course examines how black science and speculative fiction worries the division between reality and fantasy; challenges the fictions embedded in our national histories; and underscores the social, economic, and political inequities short-circuiting the lives of brown and black peoples around the world. Focusing on works from Octavia Butler to Victor Levalle, from George Schuyler to Mat Johnson, from John Williams to Colson Whitehead among others, the course engages the ways in which these authors represent the monstrous and grotesque; pandemics, environmental and technological degradation and catastrophe; urbanization, gentrification, and immigration; and (biological/technological) warfare, in order to recalibrate our understanding of the central role race plays in determining both access to, and allocation of, necessary resources. We will track the histories and afterlives of slavery and colonialism that continue to transfigure our society, while also studying varied blueprints for, and critiques of, alternative, more egalitarian societies imagined by these artists.