21L.504[J] Race and Identity in American Literature

Same Subject As: WGS.140[J]
Prereq: Permission of instructor
Units: 3-0-9 HASS-H; Can be repeated for credit

In an age when algorithms smooth out our edges and platforms reward the predictable, how do writers craft voices that resist flattening? This course explores the unmistakable, often inimitable signature styles of authors such as Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, Franz Kafka, James Baldwin, Clarice Lispector, Gabriel García Márquez, Joan Didion, and others whose voices are so distinct that we can often easily recognize them when we encounter them on the page.

We’ll study how these authors persisted in environments that pressured them to conform, and how voice becomes both craft and courage. And we’ll develop the ability to see (and articulate) what makes a sentence recognizably Morrisonian, Kafkaesque, or Baldwinian—and what makes a sentence recognizably yours.

Through close reading, style mimicry experiments (including deliberate “AI misfires” as teaching moments), and creative practice, students will investigate how voice operates not as ornament, but as identity, resistance, and persuasion. The course ultimately asks:

In a world that constantly sells us sameness, how do we author something unmistakably our own?