Fall, 1996
1:25 pm MWF
336 McKee
Professor Marcus Embry
L-30 Michener
X-2111
membry@bentley.univnorthco.edu
http://web.univnorthco.edu/eng/latina


In this course we will explore various literary and critical discourses that can be interpreted as Caribbean. Principally, we will focus on the Caribbean as a geopolitical and epistemological site that grounds a reciprocal discourse between literature from the US and from Caribbean islands. We will begin by addressing three canonical works of "American Literature" and reading the Caribbean presence within them. Then, we will address four Caribbean texts that can be said to be canonical, and we will not only read the histories and colonial contexts that they make explicit, but we will also examine the discourses that they establish with the US and Europe. Finally, we will address more contemporary texts that represent the diaspora of the Caribbean within the US population and academy. All our literary readings will be informed by accompanying critical essays and texts; we will also view films, the titles of which will be decided and announced later.
All readings will be in English.


Week 1: Lecture on the Caribbean in Colonial Discourse: Shakespeare, Montaigne, Las Casas.
8/28-30


Week 2: Selections from Eric. J. Sundquist, To Wake the Nations. Martin R. Delany, Blake or The Huts of America.
9/4-6


Week 3: Delany.
9/9-13 Herman Melville, Benito Cereno.


Week 4: William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!
9/16-20


Week 5:
9/23-25 Faulkner
9/27 Take-home essay test


Week 6: 9/30, Monday, NO CLASS
10/2-4 Edouard Glissant, selections from Caribbean Discourse. Selections from A CLR James Reader.


Week 7: Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World.
10/7-11


Week 8:
10/14-16 Carpentier
10/18 Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea


Week 9: Rhys
10/21-25


Week 10: Franz Fanon, Black Skins White Masks.
10/28-11/1 Proposals for Research Paper due


Week 11:
11/4-6 Fanon
11/8 Take-home essay test


Week 12:
11/11 Selections from Antonio Benitez-Rojo, The Repeating Island.
11/13 J. Jorge Klor de Alva, "Aztlan, Borinquen and Hispanic Nationalism in the United States."
11/15 Achy Obejas, We came all the way from Cuba so you could dress like this?


Week 13: Obejas
11/18-22 Research Papers due


Week 14:
11/25-27 Piri Thomas Down These Mean Streets.
11/29 NO CLASS -- Thanksgiving


Week 15:
12/2-4 Thomas
12/6 Wrap Up


FINAL EXAM (The third take-home essay exam)


Assignments: three take-home essay exams(45%)
three five-page essays on assigned readings(15%)
one in-class presentation(10%)
one research paper of at least twelve pages(30%)