Far from being writers—founders of their own place, heirs of the peasants of earlier ages now working on the soil of language, diggers of wells and builders of houses—readers are travelers; they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write, despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it themselves. ― Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life 

For me this space of radical openness is a margin — a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a ‘safe’ place. One is always at risk. One needs a community of resistance. — bell hooks, “Choosing the Margin as a Space for Radical Openness” 

UNIT I 

Week 0                        Introductions 

Thursday, 2/10 (8am)

• Gloria Anzaldua: Borderlands/La Frontera (Section I, Atravesando Fronteras/Crossing Borders, Chapters 1-7) 
• Robert Frost: Mending Wall 

__________________________________ 

Week 1                        Poetics of the Border 

Tuesday, 2/15  

• Gloria Anzaldua: Borderlands/La Frontera
• DUE: Reading Response—Select 1 line in Borderlands that you consider to be essential to Anzaldua’s work and discuss why you were drawn to it and how it functions within the text as a whole. The line you select might illuminate an image, metaphor, figure, word, or idea you find interesting; you must persuasively explore its meaningfulness in ways that are not obvious, general, or summarizing. Consider also how Anzaluda’s text enacts, embodies, or resists the very concept of the border that is being explored, and thus how she challenges your position as a reader.  
• DUE: Personal Narrative: Revise the border stories you drafted and shared during our 1st class session and post to the blog; this may entail rewriting, expanding, or other modifications to get to the core of your story.

Thursday, 2/17 

• Gary Soto: “Mexicans Begin Jogging”
• Javier Zamora: “Dancing in Buses” 
• Eduoardo C. Corral: “In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes”
• Lorna Dee Cervantes: “Freeway 280”
• Ada Limon: “The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversations to be Bilingual” 
• Alexandra Lytton Regalado: “La Mano“
• Martin Espada: “Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100“
• DUE: Reading Response—Identify the most important word in 1 poem (and why), then research its etymology to discover the historical and social meaning of this word as it has evolved over time. Does the etymological value of this word alter how you read its function in the poem? How does a deeper understanding of this word enable you to revisit the meaning of the poem? Discuss how the poem is opened up for you in new ways through your research. (1 paragraph max)
• FILM — Cary Joji Fukunaga: Sin Nombre —— DUE: Film Response—Discuss 1 cinematic technique (framing, angle, camera movement of a shot) in 1 specific scene which Fukunaga develops as a way of visually representing the border-crossing narrative, and discuss its meaning to the film as a whole. (DUE SUNDAY by Midnight)

__________________________________ 

Week 2                        Transnational Voices 

Tuesday, 2/22

• Li Young Lee: “Persimmons” / “Immigrant Blues” 
• Sun Yung Shin: “Immigrant Song”
• Marilyn Chin: “Turtle Soup” 
• Franny Choi: “Choi Jeong Min” 
• Natalie Diaz: “Manhattan is a Lenape Word”
• Naomi Shihab Nye: “Jerusalem” / “Blood” / “Darling” / “Arabic” 
• Noor Hindi: “Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying”
• Kaveh Akbar: “Reading Farrokhzad in a Pandemic” / “Do You Speak Persian?“
• Threa Almontaser: “Heritage Emissary“
• Hala Alyan: “Oklahoma” / “Topography”
• DUE: Reading Response—1) Write a letter to assigned peer sharing brief reflections on any 1 poem of your choice from this week’s readings (email/cc me); 2) Formulate one possible scholarly question you would pursue if you were writing an essay on this poem

Thursday, 2/24                        Geographies of Self / Transgressive Identities 

• Adrienne Rich: “What Kinds of Times Are These”  
• Allen Ginsberg: “America” 
• Danez Smith: “The 17 Year-Old & the Gay Bar”
• Ocean Vuong: “Self-Portrait as Exit Wounds” 
• Chen Chen: “Self Portrait as So Much Potential”
• Max Ritvko: “Poem to My Litter” 
• Mark Doty: “Charlie Howard’s Descent” 
• Hieu Minh Nguyen: “Staying Quiet“
• Jenny Zhang: “My baby first birthday“
• DUE: Reply to peer email (cc me)

__________________________________ 

Week 3                        Racial Borders and Black Bodies                   

Tuesday, 3/1  

• Claude McKay: “America” 
• Audre Lorde: “The Brown Menace, or Poem to the Survival of Roaches”
• gwendolyn brooks: “a song in the front yard” 
• Danez Smith: “dear white america” / “alternate names for black boys” / “not an elegy for Mike Brown”
• Jericho Brown: “Bullet Points” 
• Mark Doty: “In Two Seconds” 
• Hanif Abdurraquib: “How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This” 
• Reginald Dwayne Betts: “When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving” 
• Morgan Parker: “If You Are Over Staying Woke” 
• Saddiq Dzukogi: “Ring“
• DUE: Reading Response— Write a poem that borrows from, imitates, or emulates one of the poems this week, thematically and/or stylistically. For example, your own version of a prose poem letter to white america (Smith) or a list poem of alternate names for ____fill in the blank_____ (Smith), or an instruction poem (Parker), etc. (Last semester, one student turned in a poem entitled: “alternate names for mediocrely smart, emotionally unstable, bisexual (?), mexican-american girls who hate the patriarchy”)

Thursday, 3/3 

• Continued

Friday, 3/4 

• DUE: Essay 1, Draft 1 w/Memo 

__________________________________ 

Week 4                        Visual Forms and Intertextuality 

Tuesday, 3/8 

• Alison Bechdel: Fun Home 
• DUE: Reading Response—Read Fun Home. Discuss the significance of 1 specific scene as a way of thinking about the whole story. (post) / Visual Response—Draw 1 panel (w/accompanying text) that captures an important moment in your life story so far. (bring to class)

Thursday, 3/10 

• Alison Bechdel: Fun Home  
• CLASS GUEST: Beyond the Page

Friday, 3/11 

• DUE: Peer Review Form 

*CONFERENCES  

Week 5

Tuesday, 3/15 

• Alison Bechdel: Fun Home  / Workshop

Thursday, 3/17

• Alison Bechdel: Fun Home  / Workshop
• DUE: MIDTERM REFLECTIONS

Friday, 3/18 

• DUE: Essay 1, Revision w/Memo 

——SPRING BREAK

__________________________________ 

UNIT II 

Week 6                        Human-Animal Metamorphoses                     

Tuesday, 3/29

• Justin Torres: We the Animals 
• DUE: Reading Response— Write a 1-page story emulating Torres’ style (diction, prosody, sentence structure, tone, themes, voice, point-of-view, etc.); let the experience of Torres’ story prompt a story from your life, but since you are reading fiction (not nonfiction), take freedoms with fictionalizing the personal. I am especially looking to see how your critical investment in the novella is conveyed through your creative piece.  

Thursday, 3/31 

• Justin Torres: We the Animals  
• FILM — Werner Herzog: Grizzly Man 
• DUE: Film Response

__________________________________ 

Week 7                        Boundaries of Self & Other      

Tuesday, 4/5 

• Toni Morrison: Sula (Part I)

Thursday, 4/7

• Toni Morrison: Sula (Part II)

Friday, 4/8

• DUE: Essay 2, Draft 1 w/Memo (and Peer exchange)

_________________________________ 

Week 8                 Queer Expatriation  

Tuesday, 4/12

• James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room (Part I)
• DUE: What is the most important word in the novel, and why? / What is the most important passage in the novel, and why? / Essay 2 Questions  
• CLASS GUEST: Beyond the Page (TBD)

Thursday, 4/14 

• James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room (Part II)
• FILM — John Schlesinger: Midnight Cowboy 
• DUE: Film Response / Peer Review Letter&Meeting 
• Class Guest: Beyond the Page (TBD)

*CONFERENCES

__________________________________ 

UNIT III 

Week 9                        Black Art, Myths of Citizenship, Genre-Crossing  

Tuesday, 4/19                     

• Claudia Rankine: Citizen 
• DUE: Reading Response

Thursday, 4/21 

• Claudia Rankine: Citizen 
• LIBRARY SESSION TBD (Location: LIB 220, Wilson Media Lab)

Friday, 4/22 

• DUE: Essay 2, Revision w/Memo 

__________________________________ 

Week 10                      Expanding the Dialogue                                      

Tuesday, 4/26 

• Claudia Rankine: Citizen 
• Amiri Baraka: “Black Art” 
• Tony Hoagland: “The Change” / Rankine’s Response / Hoagland’s Letter 
• Interviews: 1) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/27/claudia-rankine-poet-citizen-american-lyric-feature; 2) “I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I asked.” 
• FILM — Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing   
• DUE: Film Response 

Thursday, 4/28 

• LIBRARY SESSION TBD (Location: LIB 220, Wilson Media Lab)
• DUE: Review Essay 3 Guidelines / Essay 3 Brainstorm

__________________________________

Week 11           

Tuesday, 5/3 

• Claudia Rankine: Citizen 
• FILM — Raoul Peck/James Baldwin: I Am Not Your Negro 
• DUE: Essay 3 Question w/Annotated Bibliography 

Thursday, 5/5

• Presentations of Final Creative Projects

__________________________________

Week 12                      

Tuesday, 5/10 

• Presentations of Final Creative Projects

Thursday, 5/12

• Presentations of Final Creative Projects

Monday, 5/16

• DUE: Essay 3 w/Memo and Final Self-Evaluation (NO LATE WORK ACCEPTED)