AFR 276
Black Europeans
Last Offered Spring 2020
Division II
Cross-listed GERM 276 / COMP 276
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Class Details

This course explores the in/visibility of Black Europeans from the Enlightenment to the present with a particular focus on French, German, Austrian, Dutch, British, and Russian history. With the European Enlightenment as point of departure, the tutorial investigates the large presence of Blacks as objectified subjects in paintings and decorative artifacts of the 18th and 19th centuries while interrogating their century-long absence from European historiography until fairly recently. In this tutorial, we will start discussing the significance of the Code Noir (1685) as well as the major economic impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on European countries such as Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands. We will read historical biographies about a handful of outstanding Black Europeans in France (composer Monsieur de Saint George), Germany (Prussian officer Gustav Sabac el Cher, philosopher Wilhelm Anton Amo), Austria (royal tutor Angelo Soliman), Holland (Prince Kwasi Boachi), and Russia (military leader Abram Petrovitch Gannibal) during the 18th and 19th centuries, study paintings and decorative artifacts of the 18th and 19th centuries depicting black servants–such as Hyacinthe Rigaud’s Portrait of Marquise de Louville (1708), Nicolas Lancret’s The Escaped Bird (1730), and Manet’s Olympia (1863) to name a few–and watch the biopic Belle by Amma Asante (2013), narrating the life of black heiress Dido Elizabeth Belle in 18th-century England. We will also do a quick survey of 20th-century European cinema, that has until now cast very few black actors in supporting and leading roles, and we will ponder the representation of black people in recent films that were commercially successful at the box office (such as Les Intouchables by Nakache/Toledano, France 2011). Finally, we will reflect on the deep roots of European colonialism that takes the form of national debates surrounding the naming of chocolate-coated treats and licorice sweets (Têtes de nègre, Mohrenkopf, and Negerkuss) or of a controversy around cultural identity resulting from the grotesque depiction of black men in folkloric tradition (like Zwarte Piet in the Netherlands).
The Class: Format: tutorial
Limit: 10
Expected: 8
Class#: 3981
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: six 5- to 7-page argumentative papers; six 2- to 3-page response papers; final paper optional
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: first-years, sophomores, and juniors
Distributions: Division II
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AFR 276 Division II GERM 276 Division I COMP 276 Division I

Class Grid

Updated 2:12 pm

Course Catalog Search


(searches Title and Course Description only)
TERM




SUBJECT
DIVISION



DISTRIBUTION



ENROLLMENT LIMIT
COURSE TYPE
Start Time
End Time
Day(s)