Unit 6: Ends of the Future

Week 26

Tuesday, March 28

• Mexica Narrative and Poetry and the Destruction of Tenochtitlan, Miguel León Portilla, The Broken Spears (Excerpts)
• Plenary: Apocalypse and the Birth of Modernity

Thursday, March 30 (am)

• Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (or, in Spanish: Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias)
• Sections: Empire and Apocalypse

Thursday, March 30 (pm)

• Joy Harjo, “Selected Poems” (“I Am a Dangerous Woman,” “Perhaps the World Ends Here,” A Map to the Next World,” “Morning Prayers,” “When The World As We Knew It Ended”)
• Plenary: Apocalypse; or, Coming Full Circle

Week 27

Tuesday, April 4

• Peter J. Smith and Robert W. Tuttle, “Biblical Literalism and Constitutional Originalism,” Notre Dame Law Review 86, no. 2 (March 2011): 693-716. Link is to the entire article (693-764) but you need only read through page 716.
• Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (Autumn 1971): 47-66. 
• Daniel K. Williams, “Introduction,” from Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 1-9.
• Plenary: Reproductive Futures: Where We’ve Been

Thursday, April 6 (am)

• WATCH Hank Green, “Aristotle & Virtue Theory” https://youtu.be/PrvtOWEXDIQ
• Rosalind Hursthouse, “Virtue Theory and Abortion,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 20, no. 3 (Summer 1991): 223-246. 
• And students should read ONE of the following Slate magazine articles by Mark Joseph Stern (section leaders split so it’s half and half): “An All-Republican State Supreme Court Unanimously Protects Abortion Rights,” OR “Another Red-State Supreme Court Finds a Constitutional Right to Lifesaving Abortions”
• Section (9:40-10:20) then Plenary (10:25-10:55): Reproductive Futures: Where We Might Go

Thursday, April 6 (pm)

• Epes Lecturer: Jayna Brown
• “Introduction”
• “The Human Project: Utopia, Dystopia, and the Black Heroine in Children of Men and 28 Days Later” OR “Being Cellular: Race, the Inhuman, and the Plasticity of Life“
• Plenary: Black Utopias

Week 28

Tuesday, April 11

• Jared Sexton, “Afro-Pessimism: The Unclear Word,” Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge 29 (2016)
• Section and Plenary: Queer Afropessimism

Thursday, April 13 (am)

• Section: Portfolio Revision/ Writing & Research Nuts and Bolts  

Thursday, April 13 (pm)

• Mary Jane Leach, Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015).
• Listen: Julius Eastman, Gay Guerrilla (1979)
• Plenary: Queer Afropessimism

Week 29

Tuesday, April 18

• Entry on Nongqawuse from the New African Encyclopedia
• Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness (2000), front matter-p21 (to section break); 37-58; 66-87 (to section break); 91-113 (to section break).
• Plenary: Prophecy, Narrative, History. Readings

Thursday, April 20 (am)

• William Wellington Gqoba “The motive for the Nongqawuse cattle-killing” (1888)
• Hugo ka Canham Riotous Deathscapes (2023), selections from introduction & chapter 1 
• Sections: Riotous Deathscapes

Thursday, April 20 (pm)

• Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness (2000) 123-137 (end of para after section break, read parts with italics); 197-201 (end of page); 208-211 (to section break); 253-261 (end of page); 268 (top of page)-277.
• Plenary: The Heart of Redness (cont.)

Week 30

Tuesday, April 25

• Carmen Maria Machado, “Inventory” (2017)
• Section: Intimate Apocalypses

Thursday, April 27 (am)

• 28 Days Later / captioned version (dir. Danny Boyle, 2002)
• Section: Discussing 28 Days Later

Thursday, April 27 (pm)

• Plenary: Zombies and the Apocalyptic Imagination

Week 31

Verna Miller Case Symposium, Wednesday, May 3