Distribution Requirements: Multi-Ethnic British Literatures

Course: Multi-Ethnic British Literatures

Professor: Visiting Instructor in English and American Literatures Benjamin Graves

Department: English and American Literatures

Credits: CMP, EUR, LIT

Location: Axinn 100

Meeting Time: M, W 2:50-4:05

Professor Perspective: 

Aiming to give a wider perspective of literature, Visiting Professor of English and American Literatures Benjamin Graves teaches books that lie outside the usual English reading list.

“The course is about black British and Asian British writing,” said Graves. “Some of the books are pretty high profile, like The Satanic Verses, but a lot of them have not figured into the ‘canon’ of British literature yet.”

In this course, students read books like The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie and Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta, analyze poems and watch films related but not limited to national belonging, multi-identities and race.

“Some of these novels and poems are great pieces of art, but they do a lot more than offer themselves up for aesthetic appreciation,” said Graves. “They work through complex questions about national belonging, ethnic and racial identity and more. That’s what we’re trying to explore in the class.”

The course will also work through writers from different generations and will analyze the changes in authors’ viewpoint of Britain and British identity. “By working through authors from different generations, we can see the disagreements forming between them,” Graves said. “It’s really fun to see these different books come into historical focus.

Student Perspective:

Graves’s class is full of students ranging from senior English majors to undeclared first years and everyone else in between. Many students of this course voiced their appreciation of how the course allows them to expand their perspective on Britain. “The class really opens up Britain to more than just the queen, tea and Shakespeare,” said Katie Pett ’13.5. “It’s interesting to read the variety of voices and perspectives.”

Catherine Corbett ’14 was interested in the course after visiting Britain.

“In looking for a class that fulfilled the EUR distribution requirement, I stumbled across Graves’s class and it immediately piqued my interest because I spent this past summer in London,” said Corbett. “I also took Professor [of Political Science] Bleich’s Politics of Diversity in Western Europe class last spring, which focused on the politics of citizenship, immigration and integration of minorities in Great Britain, so I thought it would be cool to expand my understanding of these topics through an entirely different channel. I really enjoy the class and find the novels and poetry we read to be fascinating as we explore them through a lens of race, culture and identity.”