FREN 3327 Beyond the "Island of Flowers": Literature and Culture in Martinique

This spring semester course has an embedded international study abroad component to Martinique (overseas Dept. of France) that takes place over spring break. This course examines how Martinican artists and writers represent the islands history, landscape, and cultures. Through close readings of fiction, poetry, essays, journalism, comics, and film, students are introduced to the ways cultural expression is used to confront the legacies of slavery & colonialism and produce meaning that contests dominant accounts of the past. An embedded, faculty-led spring break study abroad allows students to bring literary study into dialogue with the landscapes, monuments, cultural institutions, and people of Martinique. The experiential component will function as a form of field-based inquiry during which students reflect critically on the relationship between texts, sites, interpretation, and their own positions as visitors. The course is organized around the following questions: How do individuals and communities narrate violent histories? How has colonialism shaped the language, cultural identity, social & economic institutions, and the physical landscape of Martinique? What is the role of reading and literature in articulating a shared understanding of community and freedom? What responsibilities accompany encounters with cultures and histories other than one's own?