Zawacki, Andrew
MWF 3 :00 PM
Park Hall 0136
HATRED
This seminar will consider the role of hatred across literature and cinema. We will try to define and historicize hatred in ways that leave the concept (not merely a theme) nuanced and usefully open while clarifying the term so it doesn’t blur too easily with adjacent ideas like evil and enmity, war and crime, obsession and jealousy. Our central works are the novels Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, The Book of Night Women by Marlon James, and Omensetter’s Luck from William Gass; Alice Notley’s book-length poem The Descent of Alette; and Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello. We’ll also confront a quartet of films: Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri, Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine. Audre Lorde and Gregory Parks will provide useful criticism; the latter will visit to discuss haters with us. We will also host Virginia Konchan, who will present poems of hatred, and we’ll undertake exercises in the Data Studio with Dr. Katie Ireland, Head of the DigiLab. Students will submit a trio of critical essays.