DEI 556 - Literature, Social Justice, and Current Events

Course unit(s): 0.5
In the midst of global chaos that includes widespread racialized violence, a pandemic, and continued support for the systems of oppression and marginalization that allowed for the former and amplified the devastation of the latter, the world can feel impossible to navigate – and, more importantly, to change – without a roadmap. While pieces of that map are scattered in a variety of places, many of them fall within literature, which plays a significant role in both reflecting and shaping everything around us. In this course, we will put literature and current events in constant dialogue, as we allow our texts to transport us into the lives of people from across the nation and the globe who possess a variety of identities and experiences. We will explore how stories remind us that difference should be celebrated and that we are all citizens of the same world, dependent upon and connected to not only the people sitting next to us and waiting for us at home, but also the people we have never met and might never meet, except within the pages we will soon hold in our hands.

This course is composed of units revolving around current events that center on social (in)justice issues. For each unit, we will read texts that explain relevant historical contexts, current event articles related to the issue, and literature that speaks to the unit’s theme. The units intersect with each other, and our conversations about systemic racism, COVID-19, transphobia, xenophobia, mental health, climate change, environmental injustice, misogyny, and more will overlap. These topics are not separate, unrelated issues, but, rather, are intertwined parts of violently hierarchical systems. And yet, despite the overwhelming nature of these systems, we will also spend the semester discussing ways to dismantle them – because they can be dismantled. To that end, your concluding assignment will be to produce a grassroots organization proposal that outlines steps you and your organization will take to create real, tangible change around a social (in)justice issue that is close to your heart. Upon successful completion of the course, students will:

● Explain the necessity of unlearning Eurocentric, racist, and heteronormative modes of understanding and explaining the history and current state of our world;

● Comprehend the role literature plays in revealing, grappling with, and producing the ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, religious, gender-based, ability-based, and other hierarchies that shape our world – and the role those contexts and hierarchies play in  shaping literature;

● Reflect thoughtfully on complex issues facing twenty-first century society and use literature to consider and propose new ways of addressing those issues and creating a more just world.