Spatial Concepts in African Literature (ENGLISH 170)

Using literature and film, this course will explore various spatial concepts in African literature from a variety of perspectives. The focus will be thematic rather than chronological, but an attempt will also be made to trace the ways in which the focus on spatial concepts allow us to understand these literatures differently. Concepts will include place, nature, cities, chronotopes, spatial traversal, and means of locomotion, among others. Writers to be looked at will include Chinua Achebe, Athol Fugard, Tayeb Salih, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Walter Moseley, Toni Morrison, and Jesmyn Ward, among others.