Lowe, John
T 11:10 AM
Park Hall 67
This course will juxtapose key texts of the American South and the Caribbean, concentrating on the overlapping subjects and issues that have always characterized this transnational basin. We will attend to nineteenth century narratives of American filibusters, slave narratives, and texts that crisscross Gulf waters. Literature concerning Haiti and Cuba will be of special interest. Most classes will begin with a consideration of an appropriate work of literary criticism, particularly essays that deal with post-national American Studies and post-regional Southern Studies; the Black Atlantic; diasporan discourse; and postcolonial approaches to Caribbean and Southern literature and culture. Tentative texts include: Martin Delany, Blake, or the Huts of America; Lucy Holcombe Pickens, The Free Flag of Cuba, or the Martyrdom of Lopez: A Tale of the Liberating Expedition of 1851; Cerilo Villaverde, Cecilia Valdés; George Washington Cable, The Grandissimes; Constance Fenimore Woolson, Rodman the Keeper; Lafcadio Hearn, Two Years in the French West Indies; Frank Yerby, The Golden Hawk; Claude McKay, Banana Bottom; Zora Neale Hurston, Tell My Horse; Cristina Garcia, The Agüero Sisters; Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls Rising; short stories by George Washington Cable, William Faulkner, Lee Smith, Toni Cade Bambara, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Ana Menendez, and others; selected poetry of the circumCaribbean by Placido, Guillen, Osbey, Roumain, Suarez, and others.