GS 362 Global Literatures
Examines intercultural communications through a global/historical lens that encompasses encounters in colonial, post-colonial, and global contexts. A series of novels, essays, and short stories from the post colonial world are read in which the authors project their sense of individual and collective identities formed through the colonial interface and its aftermath. Examines relationships between author/audience and student/text in a cross-cultural dialog. (Offered every semester.)
Reflective Narrative
This course meets MLO 3: Secondary cultural knowledge and MLO 4: Literary and cultural knowledge. For MLO 3, we read several book about different cultures and societies. One of the books we read in class is called “The martian chronicles” by Bradbury; this studies the african-american culture and exposes the discrimination they had to go through. Even though is mixed with fiction and aliens are involved, the author’s message is clear enough. We also read “Salt” by Earl Lovelace; in this book we study the caribbean islands and experience a few traditions they have. This is a complicated narrative about a boy and his uncle but is definetely enriched with caribbean culture and traditions. Elegguas by Kamau Brathwaite was another interesting book discussed in class. This author was born in the Barbados islands and tells epic mind-blowing poems in this book. Lastly, we read “the spirit catches you and you fall down: a Hmong child, her american doctors, and the collision of two cultures” by Anne Fadiman; this book is a fictional narrative about Hmong culture and the effects it produces when it’s combined with American medicine. The little Hmong girl in this book suffers epilepsy, in the hmong culture they believe when an epilepsy attack happens, a spirit catches the victim and makes it fall down to the floor. Her parents refuse to use American medicine because they think it will make her worst. MLO 4 is met because we read the book called “A short account of the destruction of the indies” by Bartolomé de las Casas. This book takes us back to pre-colonial times and explains all the injustice, brutality, genocide and mistreatments that native Americans suffered by the Spaniards. Bartolomé graphically describes all the torture that Natives from all the American continent suffered and the causes of it. He tells how the Spaniards did what they did because of religion and gold. We did a lot of critical thinking essays and short assignments. For the main paper, we had to write an essay about a song that we liked and explain the meaning in detail.