DU / 2023 FALL / COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Taboo Texts: A History of Book Banning in America

LWRL 1005

Wednesday

Dates: 9/20 to 11/8 (8 weeks)

Time: 1–3 PM

Facilitator: Anne Christner, Platinum Facilitator

Location: Online

Class Limit: 30 Participants

Sponsoring Site: South

Book banning: It’s in the news almost daily. What is going on? According to the American Library Association (ALA), attempts to ban books are indeed accelerating across the country at a rate never seen since the organization began tracking such actions more than 20 years ago. In the first nine months of 2022, there were attempts to ban or restrict access to 1,651 titles, up from challenges to 1,597 books in all of 2021.

What kinds of books are subjected to calls for bans? Who challenges those books … and why? What rights do we all have regarding access to so-called offensive or threatening literature?

In this course, we will learn about proposed bans on books for all sorts of readers—past and present. But we will place special emphasis on books written for children and youth; the reason is that it is those titles that are receiving the most attention of censors currently—e.g., fairy tales, picture books, novels by Roald Dahl, and the Harry Potter series.

This course will examine all of the questions cited above, plus whether we should be concerned about this trend. To guide our journey, we will watch and discuss lectures from a new Great Courses set: Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works (2023) with Maureen Corrigan, Professor of English at Georgetown University, whose specialty is literary criticism.

Words Without Borders: Short Stories and Essays

LWRL 1001

Monday

Dates: 9/18 to 11/6 (8 weeks)

Time: 1–3 PM

Facilitator: Judith Vlasin, Diamond Facilitator

Location: Online

Class Limit: 35 Participants

Sponsoring Site: Central

This course combines two genres: short story and non-fiction essay (or in some cases, news article). Each week, we will read a piece of fiction and an essay or article which share a commonality. These will be sent to class members via email. We’ll read these outside of class and then come together on Zoom to discuss them in a friendly atmosphere of learning. The class format is mainly discussion but visuals on the authors and content will be included in each week’s email to enhance our acquaintance with the writers and their subjects. We’ll hope to become more sophisticated readers who enjoy and learn from the discussions we share in the class. Perhaps we will refine our collective ability to analyze ideas, to challenge stereotypes and clichés, and to engage in a lively exchange of ideas.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon: Meet the Last Survivor of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

LWRL 1014

Wednesday

Dates: 10/18 to 11/8 (4 weeks)

Time: 9:30–11:30 AM

Facilitator: Patricia Paul, Master Facilitator

Location: Online

Class Limit: 36 Participants

Sponsoring Site: South

The US transatlantic slave trade was made illegal in 1808. Yet, in 1860, 110 newly enslaved Africans arrived in Mobile Bay aboard the Clotilda. By 1928 only one survived: Kossola, a man caught between two cultures, African and American. As well as the context of US history, Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon draws us into the cultural traditions and practices of Kossola’s native Africa. Using his own words from interviews, she spins the story of how he grew up amongst the Yoruba in Nigeria, survived capture by Dahomian warriors, suffered the barracoons (slave pens) at Ouidah in Benin, and endured the transatlantic voyage—only to face slavery, the Civil War, the largely un-Reconstructed South, and Jim Crow.

Through thought-provoking discussions, facilitator presentations, and the documentary film Descendant about discovery of the wrecked Clotilda, we will delve into the complex themes and issues explored in Barracoon, such as identity, belonging, loneliness, and the intersections of race, culture, and history. Join us on a journey of exploration and discovery into one of the most important works of nonfiction in American literature.

Required: Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston; edited by Deborah G Plant ISBN: 978-0-06-274821-8