AFR270H1

African Literature and the Politics of Storytelling

Focuses on the art and politics of storytelling across the continent. Students will engage with various kinds of narrative genres from great African novels to short stories, folktales, popular African films from Nollywood and other industries, as well as more recent forms of storytelling from social media. Topics of discussion will include globalization, colonialism, post-coloniality, neo-imperialism, environmental justice, ecocriticism, artistic expression and African identities. This novel course offers a combination of a wide range of literary and non-literary narrative genres as well as a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to textual analysis from decolonial theories to ecocriticism, postcolonial environmentalisms, narrative theory, as well as more traditional methods of literary criticism and analysis.