“One might choose to follow only one path, either African or Native American, turning one’s back on a tradition that lies across the way. Yet one might instead choose to linger at the crossroads, sitting down for a drink brimming with the salt water of the Middle Passage and the Trail of Tears, pouring a libation and offering tobacco, and listening carefully to the interwoven strands of storytelling from African and Native American literary traditions.”

This course investigates the practice and ideal of community in America both on a national and a local level, asking students to engage in specific projects aimed at strengthening the public sphere and fostering community life. We will consider the nature and limits of democracy, the meaning of belonging, the experience of stigma and exclusion, the concepts of civic responsibility and public discourse, and the conflict and compromises inherent in political advocacy.

Using the process of writing to uncover the relationship between literary study and history, and as a means for self-discovery, students will read a variety of texts, such as: Meridian by Alice Walker, Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. They will then write and revise their responses to these readings through a series of weekly writing assignments, peer-workshops, and informal presentations.