Professor: David L. Carrasco

T - 12:00 pm to 1:59 pm

 1995 Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez met for the first time in Mexico City and spoke about their writings, editors, lives and literary influences. This course is a comparative study of the religious dimensions in their writings and lives with special attention to the themes of colonialism and liberation, homeland and quests,  rememory and myths, Africa and Latin America,  goodness and evil, slavery and freedom.  More attention will be given to Morrison’s works and García Márquez will appear in a powerful supporting role.
This course is designed to engage students with three types of texts; autobiographical fragments, novels, critical reflections. For Morrison we will use the film “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” and interviews as autobiographical fragments. For García Márquez we will read Living to Tell the Tale. For critical reflections we will use a handful of relevant essays by Carlos Fuentes, Toni Morrison, Giles B. Gunn,  and Goodness and the Literary Imagination edited by Davíd Carrasco, Stephanie Paulsell and Mara Willard.
Students will be asked to a) make a 30 minute oral presentation on the themes of religion and liberation in one of the novels/autobiographies and b) write a 20 page paper interpreting the religious dimensions in one of the writers. It is also possible to do a comparative paper on the two writers. Each of these assignments can draw on any of the novels written by Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez.

Required readings include; One Hundred Years of Solitude; Living to Tell the Tale and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Toni Morrison's works Song of Solomon; The Bluest Eye; Beloved, and Goodness and the Literary Imagination. This course will not be open to auditors.