LIT 315 Gender and Race in Literature and Film
This course surveys how works of American literature and film assert, create, examine, reinforce, privilege, and/or question the construction of racialized and gendered narratives surrounding identity. Students discuss ways that fiction, drama, poetry, popular music, and film engage with the issues of race, racism, and gender. In addition, students will learn and apply key concepts and theories of race and gender (for example, the masculine gaze, the white gaze, queer theories, critical race theory, postcolonial theories) with a critical emphasis on intersectionality in course discussions. Students will make new discoveries about familiar works from the narrative arts; understand the complex legacies of racist and sexist tropes underlying the conventions of popular genres (e.g., the western, the buddy movie, Sci-Fi, the great American novel, the American musical, and so on); and consider personal and collective responses to racism and sexism (e.g., personal viewing habits, social media responses and recommendations, critical review, and honors such as Oscars and Nobel prizes, etc.)
Prerequisites
4 Undergraduate credits
Effective May 8, 2019 to present
Meets graduation requirements for
Learning outcomes
General
- Investigate how race and gender are presented, asserted, troped, and/or questioned in a variety of American narrative genres and contexts at a level consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctly characteristic of upper-division courses at comprehensive universities.
- Understand the historical and/or cultural development of race and gender tropes in literature and film at a level consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctly characteristic of upper-division courses at comprehensive universities.
- Analyze how expectations about race and gender shape our everyday lives at a level consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctly characteristic of upper-division courses at comprehensive universities.
- Critique representations of race and gender in literature and film as constructed or performed, and in relation to everyday life at, a level consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctly characteristic of upper-division courses at comprehensive universities.
- Understand and apply several theoretical lenses of race and gender to works of narrative art from American culture.
- Create independent analyses of American narrative genres (and the history of those art forms) from an intersectional perspective to investigate how our stories shape our systems of representing complexity/stereotype, privilege/disadvantage, discrimination/exaltation, in our artistic and societal values.
- Articulate personal and collective responses to racism and sexism across several modalities such as patterns of personal consumption, systemic control of the modes of production, and institutional rewards.
- Integrate textual and cinematic evidence into the student's own writing, using standard MLA formatting and citation practices, at a level consistent with the analytical and expressive complexity and sophistication that are distinctly characteristic of upper-division courses at comprehensive universities.
Minnesota Transfer Curriculum
Goal 6: The Humanities and Fine Arts
- Demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of works in the arts and humanities.
- Understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within a historical and social context.
- Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.
- Engage in the creative process or interpretive performance.
- Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.
Fall 2025
| Section | Title | Instructor | books | eservices |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Gender and Race in Literature and Film | Bhattacharya, Shoumik | Books for LIT-315-01 Fall 2025 | Course details for LIT-315-01 Fall 2025 |