Directory of Classes
NOTE: Course information changes frequently. Please re-visit these pages periodically for the most recent and up-to-date information.

Spring 2013 First-Year Seminar BC1592 section 001
CANNIBAL COUSINS: HAITI

Call Number 06672
Day & Time
Location
TR 4:10pm-5:25pm
403 Barnard Hall
Points 3
Approvals Required None
Instructor Kaiama L Glover
Type SEMINAR
Course Description Haiti and the Dominican Republic – two nations that share the same 30,000 square mile island and over five centuries of interconnected history, yet that have long remained deeply divided. In this course, students will examine the commonalities and the conflicts that mark the relationship between these two nations. Considering the false frontiers that separate profoundly related peoples across the Americas, students will look at the extent to which nation-language borders of the Caribbean reflect the legacy of a colonial history whose influence in many ways undermines regional community to the present day. Beginning with Christopher Columbus’ fraught “discovery” of Hispaniola and ending with the 2010 earthquake and its aftermath, the course explores social, political, and cultural phenomena common to both nations – among which, slavery and freedom; constructions of race, gender, and sexuality; Euro-North American imperialist intervention; and diaspora and migration – as these issues manifest in primary and secondary works of creative fiction, history, anthropology, and political theory. From fugitive slave notices to short stories by Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat, this course traces the history of a divided Caribbean family through its most provocative representative texts. This First Year Seminar is a Critical Consortium for Interdisciplinary Studies (CCIS) Lab – part of an exciting initiative to look at contemporary realities in an interdisciplinary and transnational context. As such, the course considers Haiti and the Dominican Republic from a primarily Haitian standpoint, then brings this perspective to the (seminar) table in occasional joint class meetings with a similarly themed FYS, in which overlapping and related materials are approached from a Dominican perspective. The aim of these linked courses is to paint a rich, polyphonic portrait of this long-embattled Caribbean island.
Web Site CourseWorks
Department First-Year Seminar Program @Barnard
Enrollment 8 students as of 7:19PM Sunday, June 16, 2013
Subject First-Year Seminar
Number BC1592
Section 001
Division Barnard College
Open To Barnard
Campus Barnard College
Section key 20131FYSB1592X001

Home      About This Directory      Online Bulletins      ColumbiaWeb
SIS update 06/16/13 19:19    web update 06/17/13 15:05