Literature Social Movements

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Why are poetry and song so central to national liberation movements? How do poets engage in activism to develop their literary craft? How do student or labor activists engage with writing to develop their activism? This course answers these questions by: 1.) reviewing social movement theory with an eye to the role of expressive culture in mobilizing, framing or sustaining social and political struggle; and 2.) exploring the critical and often surprising role of literary forms—poetry, memoirs and novels—in modern social movements in the Arab world.