Literature and Social Justice Now

Dominant forms of contemporary communication can reinforce our ideological bubbles, driving out counternarratives and making it all too easy to surround ourselves with arguments that reinforce our worldviews. But in asking us to dwell inside the minds and lives of others in worlds far from--or at times disturbingly close to--our own, literature urges us to imagine alternatives to our current social and political order. These courses focus on the intricate relations of power interweaving individuals, institutions, and systems across cultures and historical periods, and open our eyes to enduring social and political issues.

Courses in this Cluster (Fall 2021):

• English 140 - Race in the Age of Trump
• English 203 - Rhetoric and Rights: Language and Power in U.S. Civil Rights Movements
• English 215 - Narratives of Girlhood
• English 232 - Intro to Visual Culture (Documented/Undocumented)
• English 270 - Race and American Fiction
• English 285 - American Refugees: The Shifting Borders of US Fiction
• English 307 - Threads: What Does Clothing Have to Do with Race, Culture, Politics, and the Environment?
• English 316 - Literary Disability Studies
• English 317 - The Social Thriller: Get Out and its Literary and Filmic Ancestors
• English 332 - Race and Visual Culture
• English 340 - Poetry and Race
• English 346 - LGBTQ+ Theatre in the US: The Theatre of the Ridiculous and Its Camp Legacies
• English 374 - Black Writers Respond: Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century African American Literature
• English 375 - Race and Economy in Global Lit
• English 384 - Caribbean Women Writers
• English 403 - Dangerous Women: Feminist Activism in the Progressive Era
• English 420 - Disabilities Past

Related Fields/Majors:

This course cluster is for students in Earth and Environmental Sciences, Political Science, Sociology, and Ethnic studies.