Undergraduate English Courses: Fall 2006

AML 3031-81719 | Periods of Early American Literature | R 6:00-8:45

Paul Wise

We will explore the interrelationship of religion, reason, and romanticism in American writing. Beginning with Native Americans, John Smith, and the Puritans, we will examine the New World's material, cultural, and spiritual milieu. Next, we will scrutinize religious and popular beliefs of early America in light of the Salem witchcraft trials. We will then focus on the effects of the Age of Reason upon the religious and political thought previously examined. Finally, we will discover ways that the Romantic Period in American literature questioned assumptions of both reason and religion.

AML 3041-80001 | Periods of Later American Literature | MWF 10:00-10:50

Bart Welling

What does it mean to inhabit stolen property? What roles do race, class, gender, and other categories play in a person's approach to place? What does it mean in the twenty-first century to be a Floridian? an American? In examining representations of real places and the notions of local, regional, and national belonging that these representations embody, we will not only gain a richer understanding of U.S. literature, but will grapple with some of the most vexing problems relating to where, and how, we live today.

AML 3041-80002 | Periods of Later American Literature | MW 7:30-8:45

Nancy Levine

The American Dream. At the center of the network of cliches and half truths composing the ideology of the American Dream, is the belief that every poor boy in America with luck and pluck can be a success. We'll examine Horatio Alger's secularization of Franklin's version of "the Protestant work ethic." The main focus, however, will be on ways twentieth-century modernist and contemporary American writers challenge, subvert and amplify Alger's "rags-to-riches" myth, including Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Miller and Gish Jen.

AML 3102-80003 | American Fiction | MWF 9:00-9:50

Betsy Nies

This course will explore some of the historical shifts that have occurred within American fiction, identifying the parameters of particular movements such as realism and naturalism, modernism and postmodernism. The latter half of the course will focus on contemporary writers, particularly those writers whose work functions in conversation with the literary movements examined within the class.

AML 3154-81720 |/ American Poetry | MW 4:30-5:45

Elizabeth Robbins

Mary Kinzie, in A Poet's Guide to Poetry, writes this about the reading of poems: "It takes time for us to read carefully; we must look words up, think about the meter and stanza form, decide who is being addressed and in what situation, decide what is the literal surface of the poem and how that is symbolic, then adjust to the subtler insights about stance, nuance, and rhythm that comes with repeated readings. Just as it takes time to read and read again, so the poem took time to come into meaning." Reading poems that carefully will be the focus of the course, as well as our subsequent considered responses, both written and oral. Our guides will be various essays on poetics, as we reflect on clusters of poems by Berryman, Bishop, Dove, Dunn, Gluck, Komunyakaa, Lowell, Oliver, Plath, and Sexton, among others.

AML 3621-80004 | Black American Literature | 11:00-11:50

Tru Leverette

Black Adolescent Literature. This course will examine adolescent literature written by black Americans throughout the twentieth century. After understanding the traditional European bildungsroman, or coming of age story, we will examine the themes and styles of the black bildungsroman. Additionally, we will historicize this literature in an effort to connect it to concerns circulating within black American communities during various periods. Readings may include Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones; Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo; Langston Hughes's Not Without Laughter; Richard Wright's The Long Dream; Andrea Lee's Sarah Phillips; and James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain.

AML 4242-82980 | Studies in Twentieth-Century American Literature | MWF 10:00-10:50

Betsy Nies

This course will focus on contemporary ethnic traditions, examining how such movements such as realism, modernism, and postmodernism have intersected with evolving ethnic traditions including, but not limited to, Native American, African American, and Chicano/a literature.

CRW 3015-82372 | Writer's Workshop | T 6:00-8:45

Mark Ari

Each of us, however long we've been writing, are wherever we are, hoping to get "better." We are always, every one of us, "beginners." In this workshop, we read fiction (traditional and avant-garde), creative nonfiction (from personal essay to lyric essay to gonzo journalism) and collage (works that straddle or break down literary borders to combine elements of fiction and folklore, nonfiction, poetry and/or drama). You write in the form you choose; we talk about them all. We bite nails and open veins and tend to the work at hand. Experimentation is encouraged. Laughter is relished. INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION REQUIRED. Contact: mari@unf.edu.

CRW 3930-82272 | Fiction Workshop | F 12:00 - 2:45

Kathleen Hassall

CRW 3930-82272 is a course for fiction writers, a workshop in which each member's work will receive close attention and careful response. We will employ supplementary texts speaking to technique, but the primary text for this class will be the students' own work. Our first meetings will be devoted to discussing and practicing various techniques essential to fiction writing; our attention for the remainder of the term will focus on the writings of workshop members.

Each writer must be willing to struggle for complexity, emotional authenticity and suggestive power in his or her own work; he (or she) must also invest time and energy in the efforts of every other writer in the group. Regular attendance, prompt reading (and review) of other writers' work, and timely production of fictions are all essential. The number and length of assignments will be determined—with the help of workshop members—after the first meeting, in response to the size and experience of the class.

CRW 3930-82273 | Poetry Workshop | MW 12:00 - 1:15

Michele Leavitt

This course is designed to focus on textual analysis, critical thinking, reasoned argument and creative writing through the exploration of the theory and practice of poetry. We will study the craft of poetry as an expression of the human condition, developing skill with language, knowledge of form, and willingness to revise. The primary method of instruction will be workshop presentation and criticism of student texts, supplemented by in-class writing exercises and analysis of model poems.

CRW 3930-83291 | Advanced Sreenwriting Workshop | R 6:00-8:45

Allan Marcil

The Advanced Screenwriting Workshop will further develop screenwriting techniques. We will explore genres, the particular and specific formats for television drama (movies, pilots, series episodes), and we will investigate the unique craft of adapting scripts from other works. Writing will be conducted in a workshop atmosphere of peer input and analysis. A revised draft of an original feature length screenplay or one hour television pilot will be the final product.

CRW 3930-83292 | Fiction Workshop | MW 1:30-2:45

Marcus Pactor

A workshop is a great place for young writers to gather and teach one another about the art of storytelling. Twice a week, we'll meet to discuss our own stories, figuring out what makes them work and what we can do to improve them. We'll use these talks as springboards to wider discussions about the overall craft of fiction: putting together strong plots, writing great dialogue, creating drama, etc. No books are required—we'll be using our own short stories and novel chapters instead.

CRW 4424-81387 | The Playwrights' Project | MW 3:50-5:30

Pam Monteleone

Mark Twain once said, "The fellow holding the cat by the tail is learning twice as much as the fellow who is just watching." The Playwrights' Project involves two kinds of activities that will challenge you to grab the cat's tail: playwriting and playmaking. The first two thirds of the course will consist of an intensive writing workshop designed to introduce you to and immerse you in the art and craft of playwriting: constructing blueprints for human interaction. We will focus on developing and practicing techniques (scene shaping, characterization, and dialogue) that make for stageworthy scripts. We will write with directors, actors, and audiences in mind. During the final third of the course, we will produce (audition, cast, direct, rehearse, and present) five to six of your original one-act plays for the larger university community.

ENC 3250-80055 | Professional Communication | F 12:00-2:45

Tim Donovan

Professional Communication is an upper-level writing course that prepares students for the types of written communication found in professional settings: memos, letters, reports, summaries, proposals, evaluations, and instructions. Rather than mere information transfer, professional communication focuses on the rhetorical necessity of explaining, translating, and mediating highly complex details efficiently for a colleague, supervisor, client, or a less expert audience.

ENG 4013-82375 | Approaches to Literary Interpretation | TR 12:15-1:30

Sam Kimball

Why do literary texts need to be interpreted, and what does such interpretation entail? How can a reader know if he or she has done a good job of understanding a particular story, poem, or film? What are the characteristics of a more successful rather than a less successful interpretation? What are the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to literary criticism? In order to answer such questions, this course will examine various kinds of literary works--fiction, drama, poetry, and film (perhaps sacred texts as well)--in relation to contemporary cultural and literary theory.

ENG 4013-82376 | Approaches to Literary Interpretation | TR 3:05-4:20

Sam Kimball

ENG 4013-82377 | Approaches to Literary Interpretation | W 6:00-8:45

Alex Menocal

Our task over the semester is to develop an appreciation for and an understanding of the ways literary theory and criticism encourage us to become rigorous readers who remain attentive to the demands of the other(s) and otherness, and in particular to the singularity that is literature. All literary theory and criticism is ethical, then. Literary theory and criticism do not just provide a set of principles or guidelines; they question the critical terms and concepts that are fundamental to any interpretation of literature.

Readings will include: Chatterton (Peter Ackroyd), The Nature of Blood (Caryl Phillips), Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson), Nights at the Circus (Angela Carter), Waterland (Graham Swift), and Moon Tiger (Penelope Lively). Critical Text: Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory (2nd Edition), Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle.

ENG 4105-82978 | Film as Literature | TR 6:00-8:45

Jason Mauro

Film is ceasing to be the social and public medium that it has been over most of its brief history. We have retreated to our private homes, or to our video Ipods, to encounter what is perhaps the most powerful storytelling medium at work in the present world. Film criticism and reviews have devolved into consumer advisories that speak to the private customer, rather than careful analyses that speak to a film going public. This course will work to retrieve the public and social power of film and film analysis. We will explore, through our attention to the specific grammar, syntax and structures specific to film, and to current theoretical arguments about it, what we are at risk of losing as we watch our films in isolation and in silence.

ENL 3333-80061 | Shakespeare | MW 1:30-2:45

Pam Monteleone.

Shakespeare's plays are enjoyed as both great drama and great poetry. This course will focus on Shakespeare the dramatist. We will examine Shakespeare's playscripts as blueprints for performance. Unlike narrative, which is retrospective (storytelling looks toward the past), drama is the art form that represents human beings as actors in their world. As we study Shakespeare's playscripts, we will explore language and characterization through scene study and scene presentation—the reading and acting of scenes. We will examine Shakespeare's stagecraft (his dramatic practice) in terms of the stage for which these scripts were written. No previous training or theatrical experience is required.

ENL 3501-80062 | Periods of Early British Literature | MWF 11:00-11:50

Mary Baron

Students expect the material in this course to be "old, boring, and hard." Indeed it is old. However it is boring only if battling monsters under water, dying of love, plotting against the Queen, and being executed in the Tower at the age of 17 are experiences that do not interest you.

ENL 3501-82947 | Periods of Early British Literature | T 6:00-8:45

Brian Striar

The course is a survey of the history of British literature focusing on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with an eye toward various trends and movements which occurred in the literature of those time periods (some consideration of Restoration and 18th Century literature is also possible). Quizzes, exams, papers, presentations, and recitations.

ENL 3503-80063 | Periods of Later British Literature | MW 12:00-1:15

Richard Bizot

We will range widely over the last two centuries of literature-in-English, emphasizing poetry, drawing upon the rich resources of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th edition.

ENL 3503-81718 | Periods of Later British Literature | TR 12:15-1:30

Mike Wiley

In this course we will read, discuss and write about fiction and poetry from the British Romantic and the British Modern periods. Both of these periods saw exciting changes in literature and culture that continue to influence who we are today. Writers in both periods raised urgent questions about identity, knowledge, and the social world(s) that surrounded them.

We will consider Romanticism and Modernism separately, in relation to each other, and in relation to the legacy they have left. Romantic writers will include William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Mary Shelley. Modern writers will include W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Katherine Mansfield.

ENL 4230-82948 | Casanova's Brothers | TR 10:50-12:05

Chris Gabbard

Casanova's Brothers: The Libertine in Literature (British restoration and eighteenth-century literature)

Description: King Charles II, the Earl of Rochester, Don Juan / Don Giovanni, Giacomo Casanova, Catherine the Great, the Marquis de Sade, Aleister Crowley (dubbed "The Wickedest Man in the World"), Wilt Chamberlin, President Bill Clinton, these are just a few famous sexual libertines. A libertine is a freethinker in philosophy, someone who rejects society's established mores and who may or may not engage in wanton behavior. The term rake is more limited in meaning; he (most often it is a he) is a libertine who pursues sexual conquests. The sexual libertine or rake figured prominently in the cultural imaginary of the Restoration (1660-1700) and the eighteenth century, both in England and on the continent. English libertines such as Rochester took their cue from the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, from the promiscuity of Charles II (popularly known as "the merry monarch"), and from France, where the libertine novel especially caught on, with its anti-clerical, anti-establishment, and erotic themes. This course shall examine how poets, playwrights, and novelists used the libertine figure to address Enlightenment concerns such as (1) the role of religion in society, (2) women's advancing social status; (3) the new intellectual emphases on rationalism, empiricism and science; (4) the emergence of economic classes; (5) the deepening medical understanding of the body; and (6) the increasingly secular nature of society. We shall view portions of two very recent films, The Libertine and Casanova, as well as segments of two Mozart operas, Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro. We also will read poetry by Rochester, plays by Aphra Behn (The Rover) and William Wycherley (The Country Wife), novels by Daniel Defoe (Roxana) and Samuel Richardson (Clarissa—abridged), and an English translation of Choderlos de Laclos' great French novel, Les liaisons dangereuses, not to mention screening director Stephen Frears' Academy Award winning 1988 Dangerous Liaisons starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Keanu Reeves, and Uma Thurman. Requirements: (1) 5-7 term paper, (2) final exam, (3) participation in weekly BLACKBOARD discussions, (4) in-class participation, (5) writing a short precis of an academic article, and (6) reading quizzes.

LIN 3010-81388 | Principles of Linguistics | MW 6:00-7:15

Ron Kephart

In this course, we explore the core characteristics of human language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and language variation, with an emphasis on how these universal characteristics apply to English.

LIT 3045-81728 | Periods of Dramatic Literature | TR 9:25-10:40

Clark Lunberry

"'Tragic Pleasure': Tragedy from Ancient Greece to Modern America (To Your Own Backyard!)"

In tragic theater, what is the attraction created by watching the terrors and tribulations of others? Are we—like voyeurs slowing down at the scene of a car crash—merely titillated on some instinctual level? Or is it somehow instructional to see the suffering of others performed before us, allowing larger lessons to be learned? Do we discern and discover something about ourselves through the witnessing of this distanced ordeal? How is it that, as Aristotle described it, tragedy offers its audience a "true tragic pleasure"? In light of the often bloody horrors witnessed, what kind of "pleasure" could this truly be? In this class, we will address some of these questions by looking at a range of classic tragedies, from the ancient Greeks, to Shakespeare, to the present.

LIT 3331-81729 | Children's Literature | MWF 9:00-9:50

Mary Baron

We will read the classic fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm and Andersen; these are nothing like the Disney movies! We will then study illustrated books for children, spending time with the works of Maurice Sendak and other award winning writers and artists. Finally we will read recently published books for middle school children which are decidedly edgy.

LIT 3333-80117 | G(3) Adolescent Literature | TR 4:30-5:45

Fred Herx

Adolescent Literature is defined as "texts for or about adolescence." As such, this course reviews the best literature produced for both readers of such texts and characters portrayed as going through their journey into adulthood. From challenging texts like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye to classic teen books like The Catcher in the Rye, Adolescent Literature examines this highly developmental period of change through the critical analysis of the "author's voice" and its capacity to represent the human experience.

LIT 3408-82958 | Approaches to Literature: Myth | 10:50-12:05 TR

Allen Tilley

We do not know of a traditional people without a body of stories which serve to define their world—that is, a body of myths. We shall read the myths most important to the origins of Western civilization, beginning with Sumerian and going on to Hebrew, Greek, Christian, and Germanic myth. The course involves comparative and historical study of biblical selections as myth. Announced quizzes and short papers. The course will proceed by discussion and involve frequent small group work.

LIT 3990-81730 | The Politics of Literacy | MW 1:30-2:45

Tim Donovan

The Forces of Literacy. Your education is directed by forces that presumably make you more literate. What are these forces? And what does the term literacy mean? In other words, who is really literate and why? This course will define the term with within the network of literary, historical, psychological, and philosophical forces. In our effort to define the concept, we will read from a range of sources, particularly literary and historical texts. In our efforts to define, we will read widely, analyzing slave narratives such as Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Alice Kaplan's memoir French Lessons, in addition to more historical-theoretical texts such as Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

LIT 4186-82960 Modern Irish Poetry | MW 3:00-4:15

Richard Bizot

William Butler Yeats's early-20th-century success as a poet inaugurated a great age of poetry for Ireland. We will consider Yeats's major successors, from Austin Clarke and Patrick Kavanagh, through John Hewitt and Louis MacNeice, then Richard Murphy and John Montague, to Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland and some of their younger contemporaries.

LIT 4243-82963 | Jane Austen: In Her Day and Ours | TR 9:25-10:40

Marnie Jones

What does the contemporary fascination with Austen films reveal about her power and our culture? Do the novels wittily subvert the reigning cultural orthodoxy of her day or does irony mask an intensely conservative agenda? We explore Austen's comic novels in the context of Regency England, examining marriage as an economic and social institution. David Denby suggests the courtship dance is "the central trial of an individual's worth: the test of his or her ability to perceive and to know." We will read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion. Students will make a class presentation on one film adaptation: choices range from direct adaptations (i.e. the BBC Pride and Prejudice or Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility) to films that do homage to Austen (i.e. Bride and Prejudice: The Bollywood Musical, Bridget Jones's Diary or Clueless). Blackboard represents an important component of the course. Evaluation will be based upon a paper, the film presentation, reading cards; participation; a final exam. Students must use the editions ordered (Penguin or Longmans) as the contextual information is central to our work.

LIT 4930-82277 | The Rhetoric of Global Warming | MW 12:00-1:15

Allen Tilley

Ideological concerns shape much of what politicians, journalists, and artists say about our most urgent issue, global warming. We will attempt to make those concerns explicit, and see what lies beyond ideology on the issue. Texts include Elizabeth Kolbert's 2006 summary of the state of our knowledge about global warming, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, as well as Michael Crichton's State of Fear (2004), which imagines that much of the concern about global warming is fraudulent. We will watch The Day After Tomorrow, a global warming disaster flick, and analyze current political rhetoric and propaganda. Announced quizzes and short papers. The course will proceed by discussion and involve frequent small group work.

LIT 4930-82965 | The Life of Documentary Film | MW 12:00-2:45

Jillian Smith

From the videotaped police beating of Rodney King in 1991 to Michael Moore's controversial Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) to the popular March of the Penguins (2005), documentary films, through the entire 20th century, have not only represented life but altered it. This course will examine the historical, political, and aesthetic force of documentary film through its history. Students will come to see the documentary form as more than a simple record by critically examining varied documentaries and by designing their own documentary project.

LIT 4930-82967 | Faulkner and Film | MW 4:30-5:45

Nancy Levine

Viewed as potential screen plays, William Faulkner's early short stories dispel the myth that his most notable quality as a writer is an addiction to impossibly long sentences. We will discuss Faulkner's career in Hollywood, but will focus on short stories and novels on film; readings will include "A Rose for Emily," "Barn Burning" and the novels Sanctuary and Intruders in the Dust. Grades will be based on weekly quizzes comparing text and film, and a final short paper. Graduate students will do extra reading and a presentation in addition.

LIT 4930-82969 | Florida Writing and Culture | TR 4:30-5:45

Keith Cartwright

It makes sense that our understanding of the world should begin from the location upon which we stand-our grounding, our natural and social landscape, the historical currents (and Atlantic currents) that have placed us here. We will be looking closely at local grounding of global issues in our reading of texts representing Florida. As North America's "first coast," Florida has served as an unusually charged cross-cultural contact zone and is our most longstanding frontier. Among our readings will be translations of early Spanish texts, Seminole word-rites and poems, Afro-Florida writing and performance, "Cracker" songs, contemporary Caribbean immigrant writing, and texts by writers such as James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Lillian Smith, Marjorie Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Russell Banks, Adrian Castro, and Edwidge Danticat. We will address a range of cultural production and performance, moving between standard literary genres and other dynamic modes (from film to advertising, prayer, and more).

LIT 4931-82971 | Special Topics in Cultural Studies | TR 3:05-4:20

Clark Lunberry

Makings of Memory: Remembrance and its Multidisciplinary Representations (or, Representing Oblivion)

In this course, we will be examining how memory has been represented in various modernist forms, from literature, music, to the visual arts—all of them united in their focus upon the remembrance of things past, the shaping of a life as it is seen through the "rearview mirror." How are memories made, and to what end? How are memories written, filmed and photographed (and, in the process, fabricated), and for what purpose? What is the role of memory (and oblivion) in the constitution, and sustaining, of identity? And what happens to that identity when memories falter or fail, as we recognize that which "memory cannot contain...," and are left only, as Shakespeare counseled, to "Commit to these waste blanks"? In conjunction with this course, the pianist Louis Goldstein of Wake Forest University will address the class on memory and music. Goldstein will also be offering an evening performance of Morton Feldman's masterpiece for solo piano, Triadic Memories.

LIT 4934-81733| Senior Seminar: Faulkner and His Children | F 12:00-2:45

Bart Welling

From the UNF Catalog: "Prerequisites: 4 upper-division English courses or permission of instructor. This course serves as an advanced capstone for English majors. Its purpose is to provide an opportunity for small-group intensive study and practice with both primary texts and approaches to literary criticism. Thus, integration of both in-depth studies of literary texts and critical skills will characterize the course experience."

In commenting on the unique problems confronting writers in the U.S. South, Flannery O'Connor once famously observed that "The presence alone of Faulkner in our midst makes a great difference in what the writer can and cannot permit himself to do. Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track the Dixie Limited is roaring down." When asked about William Faulkner's influence on their work, generations of authors around the world have responded with similar declarations of admiration—and ambivalence. More importantly, they have used their poems, stories, and novels to engage in a long-running dialogue with Faulkner on such issues as death and dying, gender roles and sexual identity, war, race and racism, time and history, the human relationship with the natural world, and United States literature and culture's place in the wider world. Similarly, they have carried on a working debate with Faulkner on questions of literary form and technique.

Over the course of the semester we will examine this dialogue between Faulkner and some of his most accomplished "children" (however hotly some of them might deny his paternity!): O'Connor and Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Albert Camus and Edouard Glissant, Carson McCullers and Kenzaburo Oe. At the same time, we will investigate different theories of influence, intertextuality, and dialogism in literature. My goal for the class is not just to show you what's so great and frustrating and timely about Faulkner, but to help you see every work of literature as a complex web of interdependencies, an unfinished conversation that, with close attention and hard work, every critic can take part in.

LIT 4934-82973 | Senior Seminar: Speak, Memory | M 6:00-8:45

Alex Menocal

Several literary critics have observed that contemporary British fiction has been preoccupied with the past, an observation which has led such critics to describe this period of British fiction as valedictory and retrospective, a literature of farewell or romances of the archive. We'll examine works of this period and what they have to tell us about the desire to represent the past and the ways in which this desire may be frustrated.

Tentative reading list: The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro), Atonement (Iain McEwan), Possession (A.S. Byatt), Moon Tiger (Penelope Lively), Regeneration (Pat Barker), Waterland (Graham Swift), Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson), Hawksmoor (Peter Ackroyd).

LIT 4934-82974 | Senior Seminar: Writing Africa / Writing Home | TR 1:30-2:55

Keith Cartwright

This class will be examining writing from a part of the globe that has been an important source of our American culture and that offers an exciting diversity of expression and thought. Since Africa is an amazingly vast continent, we will try to gain a sense of sustained focus by looking closely at cosmopolitan engagements from two locations in Africa: Nigeria and Senegal/Mali. African writers have faced great struggles in working to represent the continent, the nation, and the homeplace. Constructing and conveying a sense of home via the written word has been no simple or easy task for authors who often write in a colonial (European) language and who often face multiple dislocations in pursuing an education and a sustainable living. We will be examining (glorious) popular music and film, a rich epic narrative tradition (accompanied by an ancestor of the banjo), praise songs to deities, hunters' poems, divination narrative, novels, plays, poetry, memoir, letters, manifestos, and prison diaries from Nigeria and from Senegal and Mali. We will also look at some efforts by Americans to lay claim to African roots and homelands. We will read from Manthia Diawara's "homeboy cosmopolitanism," Senghor's "negritude," Soyinka's Nobel Prize-winning plays, Alex Haley's Roots, The Sunjata Epic, and a wonderful anthology of women's writing and song.