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This lecture course will explore the transnational turn in American Studies, focusing on how transnational perspectives enrich and complicate our understanding of American literatures, literary and cultural histories. Considering such topics as the relationship between the local and the global, border identities, and (trans-)hemispheric networks, the main concern of this course will be to think about American literature within a global, transnational frame. Introducing you to the theories and methodologies of Transnational Studies, Border Studies, Hemispheric Studies, Atlantic Studies, and African and Black Diaspora Studies, we will raise questions concerning vexed phenomena such as globalization, exile, diaspora, and migration-forced and voluntary. What roles do national borders and boundaries play in literary texts? How do contemporary writers engage issues such as the forced and voluntary movement of people (through migration, immigration, emigration, and trafficking)? What cultural work do American novels perform inside as well as outside the U.S.? Border-crossings contribute to the formation of transnational cultural identities and practices. Focusing on literary works that cross the borders of the nation-state, we will analyze the construction of identities and will engage topics such as global cities, the black Atlantic, the discourses of travel and tourism; global economy and trade; or international terrorism and war.
Course Readings:
There will be a course reader, which you can order through NamLitCult and pick up at our offices. |
