FREN 6590

Afrotopias

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2020-2021.

This seminar will explore 20th and 21st century African literary narratives through Felwine Sarr's key concept of Afrotopias defined as an active and activist imaginary, both politically radical and culturally cosmopolitan.  The seminar will discuss how literary works by Ouologuem, Lab'ou Tansi, Yacine, Dib, Waberi , Miano, and others, operate as textual laboratories, using language as the experimental medium through which they create new political fictions. Their narratives range from political parables and bureaucratic dystopias, to Afrofuturism and ecological utopias.  We will examine how they articulate innovative forms of political life, beyond traditional models of the nation-state, citizenship, and democracy.  The texts will be paired with theoretical readings, including Ernst Bloch, Foucault, Balibar, Mbembe, and others.

When Offered Fall.

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