This course will focus on literature that exists beyond English, challenging the hegemony of the language and decentering the United States. We will read fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, mainly in translation, though the syllabus will also include some diasporic authors who write in English. We will examine poetic forms (like the ghazal and the sonnet) that have migrated into English and transformed along the way.
We will also read and discuss essays on writing and the politics of “craft” and translation. We will ask questions: We who create in English, what can we learn from those who create in other languages or whose first language is not English? What have we internalized? What politics does a language hide? What is the role of the artist? What is the relationship between language and power? Who chooses what gets translated into English? What does the multilingual text do?
- Instructor: Zeina Hashem Beck