Writing Black Love

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course explores how various forms of love are imagined in contemporary Black writing on a global scale. From parent-child affections, to romance and marriage, to the closeness between friends, "love" is a central theme in literature and a crucial part of how we define humanity. Focusing on contemporary texts such as Justin Torres's We the Animals, Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy, Dee Rees's Pariah, Toni Morrison's Love, and the works of poets and lyricists including Yusef Komunyakaa, Warsan Shire, Big Freedia, and Cardi B, we will consider how various forms of intimacy are written and read in the African Diaspora. We will read these works alongside key short works from earlier moments in Black literature, as well as theoretical and critical texts in Diaspora feminism, sexuality studies, affect theory, and queer theory to consider several questions: What do literary love relationships reveal about cultural notions of gender, sexuality, class, (dis)ability, embodiment and spirituality? How are intimacy and human connection evoked differently through magic realism, experimentalism, and other Diasporic poetic and aesthetic techniques? What forms and media do black artists use to evoke the love of place, nation and home? What visions of love do these black writers develop, and how do such visions impact how freedom is imagined in Black literature?