ENGL 212 - Multicultural-American Literature

Credits: 5
LEC hours per week: 5
This course is an investigation into a specific multicultural American literary tradition chosen by the instructor. Students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about literary works in various forms and media of multicultural American writers. This body of literature covers different works inclusive of modernism and postmodernism as well as narratives that facilitate the expression of individual and communal multicultural perspectives and experiences. This course also compares similarities and differences in the literary techniques and themes of the specific multicultural literary tradition to literary techniques and themes of more mainstream literary works. Formerly: LIT 212.
Course Outcomes:

Define and describe primary functions of multicultural literatures in relationship to the wider context of American literature.
Distinguish among styles, themes, and conventions of works of the culture’s literature from different historical periods.
Apply literary concepts to identify and analyze those styles, themes, and conventions.
Interpret themes in the culture’s literature that comment on political, cultural, and social issues relevant to their historical context especially those that resist or combat social injustice and inequality.
Analyze how cultural and historlcaltraditions influence the conventions of written works of that culture and make them distinct from other forms of American literature.
Discuss literary depictions of specific historic periods or events, particularly those events that involve widespread struggles, trauma or injustices as well as triumphs and achievements.
Compare at least one significant writer from, or prior to, the modern period to a significant postmodern or contemporary writer from the same cultural tradition.

Course Topics:

Bi- and multiculturalism
Protest literature
Modernism and postmodernism
Orality
Fragmentation
Cultural solidarity and legacy
Double consciousness