This course is a head-first introduction to contemporary literary and cultural criticism that increasingly takes “Diaspora” seriously as not only an alternative to national or racial paradigms for historical and intellectual inquiry, but also to de-center the privileged black/white binary of much racial discourse and techniques of culture-based criticism. This implies a strong questioning of the status of American, African-American and first world notions of race and the phenomenon/praxis of cultural dispersal. Though contemporary in its focus, the course will also provide some historical context for the evolution of a “Diasporic” framework in the African dispersal, but also a rich context for understanding its standard deployments; we will also have cause to explore is limits and contradictions. Texts include writers primarily from the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and America.