COML 6350 - Postcolonial Poetry and the Poetics of Relation

(crosslisted)
(also ENGL 6850, FREN 6350, SPAN 6350)

Fall. 4 credits.

Co-meets with COML 4290/ENGL 4840/FREN 4350/SPAN 4350. Enrollment limited to: 15 students.

J. Monroe.

What kinds of poetry might be usefully characterized as “postcolonial” and what are the stakes of such a designation? What relation do specific poetic features have to geopolitical, cultural, historical, economic circumstances, and to the condition(s) of what has come to be called the “postcolonial” in particular? With special reference to Edouard Glissant’s influential concept of a “poetics of relation,” attending as well to our own situatedness as readers-perhaps also, though not necessarily, as writers-of poetry within U.S. (and) academic context(s), this seminar will focus on Caribbean and U.S. poetry as especially fruitful sites for exploring a diversity of approaches to these and related questions concerning postcoloniality, poetry, community, language, culture, and identity.