Social movements throughout the Americas during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have had important relationships with artists and intellectuals: writers and artists have contributed to these movements, at the same time that those struggles have given intellectuals opportunities to have their voices heard.

We will examine and think about the roles of writers and artists in decolonization in the Caribbean, in civil rights, Black and Brown Power movements in the U.S., and in more contemporary struggles.

We will look at multiple genres of committed literature—poetry, fiction, autobiography, essay, speech, music—to see how different forms create and participate in the public sphere. The semester will end with students researching a contemporary social movement to explore the art and rhetoric associated with it.