English

In this course, you'll discover the depth and diversity of Native American literature — including oral creation narratives, protest speeches, autobiographies, poetry, and contemporary novels – by writers such as Zitkala-Sa, Luther Standing Bear, D’Arcy McNickle, Leslie Marmon Silko, Marcie R. Rendon, Mona Susan Power, David Heska Weiden, Tommy Orange, Natalie Diaz, and authors of indigenous horror and science fiction.

We will analyze these texts within their broader historical and cultural contexts, including how Native writers resist and reimagine colonialist policies and misrepresentations that were designed to eliminate and control Native American peoples. We will also compare stereotypical and realistic representations in a film or television series: either Wind River (Dir. Taylor Sheridan), Mekko or Reservation Dogs (Dir. Sterlin Harjo), or Fancy Dance (Dir. Erica Tremblay).

This course explores literature by African Americans — beginning with slavery, and continuing through Reconstruction, into the 20th and 21st centuries. Study many of the current stereotypes in American cultural mythology about African Americans and the complex and varying forms of resistance and strategies for survival that African Americans have been forced to develop. Examine issues and strategies in writings from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, including audience, identity (self), gender, family, culture, politics, spirituality, and language. Intended for students wishing to transfer and/or students interested in exploring African American literature.

In this course you'll examine the works of multicultural women poets, novelists, dramatists, and essayists and their aesthetic and sociopolitical contributions to American literature and literatures written in English. You''ll study literary analysis of the intersections between gender and race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, and other constructs of identity and power. 

In this course you'll study the history of graphic communication, emphasizing the burgeoning and dynamic form of contemporary graphic narrative: from memoir writing, to crime fiction, to the superhero, to socio-political writing. Explore how the history and evolution of this distinct literary genre has made it a relevant form of expression for artists and writers across the world and how reading comics challenges traditional modes of reading. Because this form of storytelling is used by artists all over the world to express the human condition and specific socio-cultural insight, the course inspires world-wide cross-cultural awareness.