This course explores contemporary literature in relation to the interdisciplinary framework of “wicked problems.” Research emphasizes that complex, entrenched problems, like government relations with Indigenous peoples or human impacts on the climate, involve interconnected systems and require approaches that cross disciplines and types of knowledge. The course examines the role of literary works (mostly 21st-century fiction) in addressing these issues of pressing concern to students as global citizens. Critical thinking, scholarly reading and database research are foundational skills that this course strengthens in order to prepare students for their writing in disciplines across the university. Through a wide survey of poems, we will investigate not only the contextual motivation for poets responding to political issues but interrogate the formal and performative means by which they present their work to the public. Poems will be read within a wider history of social movements and civil liberties; and touch upon major historical events such as the AIDS crisis, Black liberation struggles, movements for feminist and 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, ecological and climate-change concerns, and current calls for prison abolition. We will touch upon poetic “schools” or “styles,” including the Poetics of Witness, persona poetry, the Black Arts Movement, and the Kootenay School of Writing. This course explores how BIPOC literature has intersected with social problems and activist movements, creating spaces for readers to reflect on their own lived experiences. Students will expand their creative thinking, critical reading and scholarly writing skills through multi-modal assignments that offer connections to current issues and community knowledge.
This course explores contemporary literature in relation to the interdisciplinary framework of “wicked problems.” Research emphasizes that complex, entrenched problems, like government relations with Indigenous peoples or human impacts on the climate, involve interconnected systems and require approaches that cross disciplines and types of knowledge. The course examines the role of literary works (mostly 21st-century fiction) in addressing these issues of pressing concern to students as global citizens. Critical thinking, scholarly reading and database research are foundational skills that this course strengthens in order to prepare students for their writing in disciplines across the university. Through a wide survey of poems, we will investigate not only the contextual motivation for poets responding to political issues but interrogate the formal and performative means by which they present their work to the public. Poems will be read within a wider history of social movements and civil liberties; and touch upon major historical events such as the AIDS crisis, Black liberation struggles, movements for feminist and 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, ecological and climate-change concerns, and current calls for prison abolition. We will touch upon poetic “schools” or “styles,” including the Poetics of Witness, persona poetry, the Black Arts Movement, and the Kootenay School of Writing. This course explores how BIPOC literature has intersected with social problems and activist movements, creating spaces for readers to reflect on their own lived experiences. Students will expand their creative thinking, critical reading and scholarly writing skills through multi-modal assignments that offer connections to current issues and community knowledge.
