ENGL9913 · English

PhD Seminar: Tripping the Dark Fantastic: African Diaspora in/and Genre Fictions

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

Refracted through the lens of popular fiction written by black writers, we will journey through the field of African Diaspora Studies (ADS) to explore a variety of thematic preoccupations. Tripping the Dark Fantastic asks: what do contemporary discussions of identities, race, gender, class, place, and diaspora look like when depicted in popular literature written by black writers? What critical work can readers do with these extra-literary themes imagined in popular fiction? We address this question by examining contemporary genre literatures specifically horror, science fiction, fantasy, thriller, detective/mystery, as well as urban romances to determine how each form represents concerns of 20th/21st century black peoples in Africa, the Caribbean, US, and Canada. Our focus on these literatures explorations of ADS concerns is complemented by historical and sociological studies of these countries. This class explores social, historical, creative, and ADS themes depicted in works by Steven Barnes (US, thriller), Patrick Chamoiseau (Martinique, police procedural), Colin Channer (Jamaican, urban romance), Tananarive Due (US, horror/mystery), Nalo Hopkinson (Canadian, sci-fi/fantasy), NK Jemisin (US, epic fantasy), Barbara Neely (US, mystery), and Nnedi Okorafor (Nigerian-American, science fiction).