ENGL 280 - Slow and Close: Toni Morrison

Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)

Have you ever danced a “slow drag”? The slow drag is a colloquialism for a form of partner dancing that grew out of the ragtime and blues musical traditions: musicians slowed down the music’s tempo, allowing partners to hold each other closely and move in unison to the slow beat of the music. The “drag” is intimate, marking partners as “together,” for the song’s length, perhaps longer. Partners notice things about each other that would be unnoticeable at a faster tempo. This intensive takes the pace and intimacy of a slow drag and turns both onto a text. In “Slow and Close,” we spend six weeks slowly reading a single novel. The idea is that by extending our time with the text, we are able to see and experience things we might not otherwise. In addition to slowing down the reading process, students produce close readings (analysis) of small sections of the text for each weekly meeting. For this semester, we dance the drag with Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Eve Dunbar.

First six-week course.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: INT