Reading Slavery: From the New World to This One

This course serves as an introduction to the histories, theories, philosophies, and aesthetic representations of Black enslavement from the 15th century to American Reconstruction. The emergence and expansion of Black enslavement under the auspices of racial capitalism was as much a social, cultural, political, and environmental process as it was an economic one. As such, this course will engage with archival documents, social phenomenon, literary texts, and multimedia representations and engagements with enslavement. This is a reading intensive course that assumes no familiarity with the topic; we will stretch across the Black Atlantic, looking to the Caribbean, North America, Latin America, and parts of Africa.

This course is the first part of the two-part course called “Reading Slavery.” Part one, “Reading Slavery: From the New World to This One” fulfills the pre-1860 requirement for the major. Part two, “Reading Slavery: From This World to Futures Unimagined” will be taught in the spring and fulfills the post-1860 requirement for the major.

Sample Texts:

• Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies

• Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African

• Jennifer Morgan, Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic

• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

• Harriet Wilson, Our Nig

• Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past

• Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts”

Sample Assignment:

Students will, in groups, put together a digital museum exhibit, using the archival materials explored throughout the semester. Each student will choose two objects, write up a critical analysis of the objects, put together an annotated bibliography, and provide metadata.