Diverse Identities & Communities Courses Fall 2024


ENGL 340: Early Indigenous & African American Literature

Instructor: Laura L. Mielke
26557 | TuTh 9:30-10:45 AM | Wescoe 4076 - LAWRENCE

African American and Indigenous authors prior to the twentieth century produced a wealth of literature, including novels, plays, speeches, life writing, and poetry. The scope and richness of this work—which continues to be recovered—defies racist discourse of the period that associated members of both groups with illiteracy. It also defies conceptions in our own day of Indigenous and African American expression as limited to accounts of trauma. In this course, we will approach the rich and varied legacy of early Indigenous and African American literature through the works of eight writers from the nineteenth century: Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, William Apess, Maria Stewart, William Wells Brown, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša), Charles Eastman, and Charles Chesnutt. Students will read works closely, be introduced to critical concepts from Black Studies and Indigenous Studies, participate in class discussions, and complete papers and exams.

Inside page of book with drawing of author, text reading "A son of the forest; the experience of Willaim Apes, a native of the forest, written by himself"

ENGL 383: Cultural Rhetorics

Instructor: Pritha Prasad
26514 | MW 11:00-12:15 PM | Summerfield 502

“Cultural rhetorics” describes an approach to rhetorical study that critically considers how rhetoric creates and sustains cultures, communities, identities, histories, and institutions of power. Cultural rhetoricians ask questions like: What counts as rhetoric, and who gets to decide what is worthy of rhetorical study? How can rhetorical inquiry be used not only to critique and expose discourses of power, but also resist them? In this section of ENGL 383, we will interrogate these questions at length, focusing specifically on the rhetorical features of empire, imperialism, and coloniality in the Global North (i.e. North America, Europe, Australia, etc.). We will study a range of rhetorical perspectives across critical race and ethnic studies, decolonial studies, and abolitionist studies, and we will analyze historical and contemporary examples in politics, popular culture, educational institutions, human rights rhetoric, and social movements. By the end of the semester, students will leave the course with 1) a working understanding of how cultural rhetorics operates as a subfield of rhetoric and composition studies; 2) the skills to analyze cultural, political, and legal discourses using methods of rhetorical analysis; and 3) practice designing original research/writing projects that both engage and expand the cultural rhetorics approaches discussed and emphasized in the course.

woman leaning over blank book with brightly colored illustrations emerging from pages