123043 PS Literary Studies / Proseminar Literature (2021W)

This course will introduce students to Caribbean poetry across the diaspora, stretching from the Caribbean basin to its diaspora in the United States and Canada. Various complex colonial legacies of the past as well as migration flows of the present connect the Caribbean to continental North America. We will identify common themes in Caribbean poetry – such as themes of belonging, history or memory, as well as ecocritical and gender-specific perspectives – and look at how they are articulated on the poetic page, through language, rhythm, and form.
In this course, we will study both established and emerging poets and their contribution to Caribbean (diaspora) literature. We will consider the rich tradition of Caribbean poetry, from the long epic poem to spoken word and dub poetry. A spoken word poet from Trinidad and Tobago will perform in one of the sessions (online) and students will have the possibility to ask questions afterwards. Our theoretical framework for approaching the poems will come from Caribbean studies, postcolonial studies, and diaspora studies, among other fields.

In addition to the thematic focus, this proseminar will introduce students to stages of academic writing, including carving out a topic for the literary analysis, finding additional secondary literature, and writing and structuring a proseminar paper.