ENG 1238 Black Speculative Fiction

This course provides an introduction to Black Speculative Fiction. Black SF is an umbrella category for creative work by Black artists who draw from (but often exceed and reinvent) genres of horror, fantasy, & science fiction. Often, this work performs social critique, using compelling stories to reimagine the world in more expansive and equitable terms. Primarily, this course focuses on written work across a variety of forms (novels, stories, essays, poetry, etc.). We will also examine films, comics, visual artwork, and music. And although we will explore some texts composed by African and diasporic creators, our focus will be on Black authors rooted in the U.S. context. Together, we will read and respond to texts that make aesthetic and political claims on past injustices, present inequities, and future possibilities.

Credits

4sh

Course Types

Literature; Advancing Equity; AAASE minor (general elective)

Offered

• Fall
• Spring

1. Demonstrate an ability to analyze and interpret texts [LIT Goal #1]
2. Demonstrate an awareness of literature as informing & informed by a variety of contexts [LIT #2]
3. Demonstrate an ability to engage with literary theory and criticism [Lit #3]
4. Demonstrate an ability to write in the discipline, especially using close reading methods [LIT #4]
5. Personally interrogate their own racial and other identities within cultural institutions and consider how those structures shape their realities. [LIT #5 / AER #1]
6. Explain how the social construction of race and intersectional identities are embedded in U.S. institutions and systems. [AER #2]
7. Evaluate the historic, cultural, and societal causes of systemic and structural inequity [AER #3]
8. Mobilize literature to explore real and/or theoretical solutions to systemic racism by focusing on how historically marginalized groups self-advocate, resist oppression, & build solidarity [AER #4]