All Courses

“Poetry makes nothing happen,” moaned W.H. Auden in 1940. But when, as Yomi Sode claims, justice is relegated to an autopsy with no apology, how do writers respond? In this class, we will investigate how literature stands up against marginalization, discrimination, racism, jingoism, sexism, censorship, and other modes of victimization—and try to place literature’s role in the battle against oppression. The nature of literary responses will vary across our readings such as Songs of Experience by William Blake (serious moral authority), The Book of the Dead by Muriel Rukeyser (docupoetics), The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff (humor), 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane (in-yer-face), among others. In doing so, we will evaluate can art indeed be “a hammer with which to shape reality” (Brecht).