ENGL 2870 - [Freedom Writes: Literature of Global Justice Struggles]

(crosslisted) ASRC 2870
(LA-AS)

Fall. Next offered 2015-2016. 4 credits.

S. Mohanty.

This course examines the idealism that has informed the major justice movements of the modern era, drawing on literature, film, art, and music. It is based on the simple idea that literary and cultural texts of U.S. minority groups and of the decolonizing “third world” need to be studied together. These texts introduce students to a submerged history that should neither be idealized nor forgotten. Using the methods of textual analysis and historical contextualization that writers, poets, and literary critics employ in their work, Freedom Writes will connect the ongoing struggles for social justice of minoritized populations in the US with the history of struggles for justice by workers, women, and disempowered social groups all over the modern world.