TALES FROM THE ANCESTORS: RELIGION AND LITERATURE IN THE CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Lower-Level

This course introduces we will explore the history and religious creative genre of Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism. We begin by considering the literary and scholastic works on Afrofuturism by focusing on the works of three writers and scholars: N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor and Toni Morrison. In between, we will discuss issues of religion, language, dialect, political art, music, genre, and gender as we read poems, novels, speeches and short stories. Additionally, we will consider questions like what role has writing by Black religion played in the sci-fi and fantasy? How has this genre of writing been shaped by different ways of thinking about race and religion? How has race and religion, in turn, been shaped or constructed by that writing? And how do representations of gender and sexuality participate in a literary construction of race and religion?