Eng 416 Poetics of Water & Power                                               

  Spring 2024 / MW / 12:00-1:15 / In-person / KUY 409         

Instructor: Dr. Noʻu Revilla (nrevilla@hawaii.edu)

 

Course Description

     In this cross-genre course, we will consider how creative writers, particularly poets, use stories about water to stage important conversations about power, desire, and community. How do writers channel the symbolic power of water into the page and stage? Why do Indigenous activists across the world, from Mauna a Wākea to Oceti Sakowin, choose to present themselves as water protectors? What stories run in the rivers and pipelines that channel your water? What would happen if your access and rights to clean water were taken from you?

     Situated as we are in Hawaiʻi nei, we will begin the semester by reading creative and scholarly works by ʻŌiwi (Hawaiian) writers. We will then place these stories in conversation with the larger Pacific and global considerations of environmental racism and intergenerational trauma and healing. While highlighting poetry, we will also explore lyric essays, life writing, scholarship, and spoken word to engage issues of culture, race, gender, class, access, immigration, and climate justice. Students will develop skills in literary analysis and produce original creative works within a writing community.

 

Possible Course Texts to Purchase

     Most course texts will be made available as PDFs or hyperlinks on our class Laulima page. In addition to these materials, students may be asked to purchase one, two, or all of the following books:

• Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler
• NourbeSe Philip, Zong!
• Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Dub: Finding Ceremony or Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals