This course takes as its focus the intersection of race and gender as explored and expressed in diasporic Black women’s writing. With a focus on North America, we will ask about the relationships amongst self-expression and genre under conditions of disempowerment. This course introduces contemporary thinking about race and colonial encounters alongside fiction and life-writing by African American, Canadian, and Caribbean women from a range of historical periods. Authors may include: Mary Prince, Harriet Jacobs, Audre Lorde, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwige Danticat, Dionne Brand.