ENGL 440 A: Special Studies in Literature

Toni Morrison

In the wake of Toni Morrison’s passing this course pays tribute to her life and incredible legacy—literary, critical, political, and historical.  We will read a selection of her novels, other writings and interviews over the course of the quarter, and will work together to build up thematic lines of inquiry including (but in no way restricted to) the afterlife of slavery; historical memory, trauma and forgetting; and gender, genre, and power.  Over the course of the quarter, students are expected to complete a set of short reader responses, a brief paper on criticism, and a seminar paper of roughly 8 pages.