ENGL 787 (01) - English Major Seminar

Fall 2024 Special Topic: "Climbing the Empathy Wall": Race in Contemporary American Literature 

“An empathy wall is an obstacle to deep understanding of another person,” writes Arlie Russell Hochschild in her study Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, “one that can make us feel indifferent or even hostile to those who hold different beliefs or whose childhood is rooted in different circumstances.” This course asks, “How can we climb that empathy wall?” Through very contemporary literature—published from 2015 onward, including novels, short stories, poetry, essays, graphic narratives, media images and other pop culture—we will discuss what health, wealth, environment, education, and justice mean for BIPOC (biracial, indigenous, people of color) and for poor whites. Possible texts; Orange’s Vanishing Stars; Munoz’s The Consequences; Ward’s Let Us Descend; selections from Castillo’s How to Read Now: Essays; Potts’ The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America; selected poems by Ocean Vuong, Tayi Tibble, and/or Erin Marie Lynch; Huang’s Disorientation; Jacobs’ graphic narrative Good Talk; and selected chapters from Irving’s Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race and Hochschild’s Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right.

In Fall 2024 this course satisfies the Race, Gender & Postcolonial Studies requirement for English Majors following degree requirements activated in Fall 2023.

This course may be taken for CAPSTONE credit by English Majors following degree requirements in place prior to fall 2023. Pick up a Capstone Declaration Form in the main ENGL office (HS 230F) if interested in this option. 

This course satisfies the Capstone requirement for English Literature Majors. 

This course satsifes the Race & Racial Theories requirement for English: TBD, English Teaching, English/Journalism, English/Law 3+3 Majors.