LIT 270-01 Topics in Literature: Gender, Race and the City
Professor: Davey Knittle
Monday/Thursday 2-3:20pm
Is urban space gendered? Is it racialized? Do we change how it is gendered and racialized as we move through it? Does it change us? This course explores gender and race in four cities: New York, New Orleans, Chicago, and London through the study of urban literature. We will employ our urban literary texts to investigate how practices of using and making space are gendered and racialized. We will consider questions of migration, immigration, displacement, and belonging alongside our examination of how systems of gender and race shape cities and urban life.
After an introduction to seven keywords for the study of gender, race, and the city, the course will be organized around the study of three main urban sites: the home, the street, and the neighborhood. Assignments will include an auto-ethnography, a close reading assignment that uses archival material, a keywords assignment, and a final assignment that asks you to propose an additional type of space in which to study the intersections of gender, race, and the city in one or two of the literary texts we have read this semester. In each space, we will conduct an interdisciplinary analysis, drawing from literary studies as well as from sociology, political science, geography, city planning history, education, Black studies, and queer and trans studies.
LIT 270-02 Topics in Literature: The Art of the Podcast
Professor: Susanne Davis
Tuesday 4:30-7:20pm
What is the art of the podcast?
In this course, students will consider the podcast voice as a presence of witness. Students will explore podcasts both analytically and creatively.