Techniques of literary study, with emphasis on intersectionality and the ways in which gender is represented in literature and contributions of feminism and gender studies to literary studies.
Term 2
GRSJ 224B (201): Migration and Mobilities in Contemporary Literature
Instructor: Lorenia Salgado-Leos
Description: This course examines migration and mobility in contemporary literature. Each week, we will critically engage with a diverse set of scholarship and literary works, exploring topics such as borders, space, and movement.
We will consider issues of intersectionality and immobility in globalization, law, and the politics of migration. Throughout the readings, we will explore a wide range of contexts, including cultural, geographic, environmental, capitalist, infrastructural, and bureaucratic (b)ordering tensions, limits, and contradictions, reflecting on the everyday encounters, ethical undercurrents, and creative practices of liberation, fugitivity, and refusal.
GRSJ 224B (202): Social Justice Futures: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, and Fantasy
Instructor: Dr. Kim Snowden
Description: In the introduction to Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, Walidah Imarisha says that “whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in speculative fiction. All organizing is science fiction. Organizers and activists dedicate their lives to creating and envisioning another world, or many other worlds.” Likewise, writers of science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy create other worlds; worlds that imagine a future of global transformation, a future free from oppression and marginalization. Like social justice movements, science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy offer us the possibility for change and the promise of revolution.
This course will explore the connections between science fiction, speculative fiction, and social justice scholarship and activism. How can social justice movements benefit from reading science fiction and speculative fiction through an intersectional, social justice lens? In answering this question, we will explore a variety of science fiction and fantasy texts in relation to social justice and movements for social change. We will then explore the importance of science fiction and fantasy in visual media and film and television by exploring series and films such as Bladerunner, Westworld, Foundation, The Creator, Sense8, The 100 and others.