Topics in Postcolonial Literature I

Diaspora literature is often characterized as being in flux, reflecting both in its format and its stories, movement between places and worlds. The concept of the queer diaspora positions these stories as queering traditional concepts of time, space, and desire in their imaginative movements. In this course, we will examine narratives of several diasporas, including but not limited to the African Diaspora, the South Asian Diaspora, the Canadian Diaspora, and the Middle Eastern Diaspora. In what ways are queer desires and identities represented in the literatures of diaspora traditions? How do queerness and culture intersect? We will look at queer bodies, time, maps, stories, and desire in a series of novels, short stories, and poems written by authors from each of the diasporas in question, including fictional texts like Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For, and Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater, as well as critical theory such as Gayatri Gopinath’s Impossible Desires, Lily Cho’s “The Turn to Diaspora,” and Katherine McKittrick’s Dear Science and Other Stories.