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Toward a Minor Literature? |
Monday, 01:15 PM - 02:45 AM: GWZ 2.516
Spring Term 2009
Catherine Chung
Course sheet
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"There is nothing that is major or revolutionary except the minor," say DeLeuze and Guattari. In their groundbreaking work, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, they define minor literature as "something a minority constructs within a majority language" to subvert or disrupt the literary tradition (or canon). In this course we will use this conception of minor literature as a starting-off point from which to explore a sample of literature by American minority writers to whom this label could apply. "Minor literature" as
described by DeLeuze and Guattari ultimately engages with the political and social structures which serve to oppress or marginalize the minority position, and as such, minor literature is radical, experimental, revolutionary, and always political.
We will study texts (by authors including Diaz, Baldwin, Silko, and Lee) that may be said to fit into this particular framework of minor literature. We will explore how these texts engage with issues of assimilation and alienation, as well as their treatment of oppression, language, and the markers of class, race, and sexuality. We will also, to some extent, discuss how these texts work to deterritorialize language itself and to remap the established literary landscape. Finally, we will address the ways in which this conceptualization of minor literature, while breaking new ground, simultaneously introduces its own significant problems and limitations in its approach to literature by minority writers.
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