Instructor: Nicole M Gervasio
This course explores human rights issues in contemporary novels, films, and short stories from Africa and the Caribbean as well as humanitarian-inspired art, films, television, and music videos circulated around the world. When postcolonial writers and cultural producers decide to represent violence in their countries, they risk reproducing racist stereotypes that permeate international media. And yet, violations of basic human rights tied to civil war, sexual violence, religious fanaticism, and ethnic strife are intimate features of their national histories. How can postcolonial writers undermine the harmful stereotypes and dominant narratives that predetermine their stories in the international public sphere without reproducing stereotypes? To better understand strife abroad, we will take an interdisciplinary feminist approach to the politics of representing human rights. Our readings, paired with options for poetry slams, film screenings, and walking tours in New York City, will prompt us to reflect critically on the ambivalences surrounding human rights in our own U.S. culture. We will engage literary representations of historical events ranging from the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and the Rwandan genocide, all the way up to Black Lives Matter and Islamophobia in the wake of Trump’s election. Final projects invite students to reflect on methods for representing human rights through creative writing and literary zine-making. This course, which fulfills the University Global Core requirement, as well as English major requirements for prose fiction/narrative and comparative/global literature, will appeal to students not only literature but also in human rights, history, political science, African studies, law, and gender and sexuality studies.
