In what inventive ways do novels by global black women writers experiment with the representation of black subjectivity? This set of four workshops will feature fourteen scholars of contemporary global literature who explore the inventiveness of black women writers from Britain, the Caribbean, Africa and the U.S. Presenters will focus on authors such as Jesmyn Ward, Toni Morrison, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Paulina Chiziane, Nalo Hopkinson, Bernardine Evaristo and Helen Oyeyemi. Through attention to the narrative form and stylistic innovations of such authors, presenters will explore how black women writers reshape the formal structure of their novels and pioneer different styles of narration in their efforts to depict the lives, histories and subjective realities of the racialized subjects represented by their characters. Presentations will display the revolutionary content and stylistic innovations deployed by contemporary black women writers in their efforts to make readers confront and even change their fixed ideas about racialized subjects.
