African 203 (Lecture 002): Film, Literature, and the Black Diaspora in the Age of Terrorism

This course is a comparative study of cinematic and literary representations of Black experience that Black Diasporic artists have produced during the Age of Terrorism. 

The Age of Terrorism is defined not only by the 9/11 attacks, but also, this course suggests, by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the drug war, Hurricane Katrina (and other natural disasters), the 2008 financial collapse, the Black Lives Matter movement, immigrant flows across water and land, the rise of far-right political movements, the 2020 global pandemic, Artificial intelligence, computer technology, social media, and our collective discontent, and, now, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. 

Employing the techniques of film, literary, and cultural criticism, we’ll study how writers and filmmakers of the African Diaspora have represented the 21st century’s first quarter. Alice Diop, Raoul Peck,Yaa Gyasi, Steve McQueen, Teju Cole, and Abdulrazak Gurnah will be among the artists we’ll discuss during the semester. 

Attentively analyzing the aesthetic choices these artists make to tell their stories and forward their arguments, we will think together, pondering questions such as: Can Black artists help us understand what experiencing or witnessing terrorist events, forever wars, repeated environmental and economic disasters, and the erosion of democratic governing systems has done to our bodies and imaginations? Can these novels and films offer us pleasurable art experiences while also asking us to engage with the historical and contemporary complexities of life on the planet? How might our studies of Black art and our developing critical practices support our future community hopes and personal professional desires?