Poetesses of African Descent and Surrealism

Leopold Senghor, first president of Senegal, poet, and African Surrealist said: 'European Surrealism is empirical. African Surrealism is mystical and metaphorical' (1984). In his 'Afrosurreal Manifesto' (2009), D. Scott Miller makes a distinction between Surrealism and Afrosurrealism. In over a 100 years, artists and writers of African descent have claimed themselves as 'surrealists', 'afrosurrealists' or 'African surrealists' and even 'Afrofuturists'. In this class, we'll interrogate this common denominator as well as what its mystical and metaphorical dimensions are through the work of Jayne Cortez, Jean Binta Breeze, NourbeSe Philip, Lorna Goodison, Zora Neale Hurston, Aja Monet and Erykah Badu. Starting from Suzanne Cézaire's 'Surrealism and Us' (1943), we will encounter different facets of the concepts and how poetesses have embodied it in their works, poetics and aesthetics. We will also investigate the performance and musical aesthetics of surrealist artists who have explored the interplay of music and text within the musical genres of blues, jazz, hip-hop and neo-soul. Key questions that will accompany us throughout are the use of excess and increments in surrealism, the notion of creative healing, the dominance of the self and the portrayal of reversal and revolution through the body in text.