Family Sagas: Women's Writing from Africa and the African Diaspora

Undergraduate / Graduate

When asked why she writes, Jamaica Kincaid once said, "I liked to talk about my mother, her family, my life, what happened to me…and I could only get to them in this way." This English and Creative Writing seminar focuses on family sagas: multigenerational stories of intimacy, friction, and survival in women's writing of Africa and the African diaspora. Reading novels and poetry, we will come to understand how Black women writers have remembered or imagined family. The works we will read take place against the backdrops of slavery, colonialism, war, intimate violence, nationalism, and migration. Yet, they also portray the rhythms and joys of everyday life. Throughout the quarter, we will explore the imaginative techniques these authors use to engage the senses, both the mundane and the fantastical. This body of work will also be a guide for our own creative writing, in which we will mine our own family stories, meditating on family heirlooms, portraits, and more. In addition to our classroom work, we will engage the study and craft of family sagas in the city of Chicago: activities may include visiting libraries, bookstores, and theatres, and special visits from writers. (Fiction, 20th/21st)