AFR 136
Slavery and the Making of a Literary Tradition Spring 2018
Division II Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed ENGL 136
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

How has the subject and iconography of slavery continued to preoccupy the American literary and cultural imagination? In this course, we will examine the transatlantic circulation of ideas regarding race, nation, citizenship, self-mastery, agency, and freedom in colonial and antebellum America and consider how these debates have continued to the present. We will read such authors as Phyllis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Wilson, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, and Toni Morrison. Forms will include poetry, slave narratives, novels, advertisements, broadsides, pamphlets, and other ephemera. We will also view cinematic representations of slavery, such as WGN’s Underground, the adaptation of Solomon Northrop’s 12 Years a Slave, and Issa Rae’s parody “Due North” in Insecure. This course contributes to the College’s Exploring Diversity Initiative by interrogating the social, political, and economic legacies of American slavery in contemporary society.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 4019
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: active class participation, 4 short papers totaling about 20 pp.
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the fifth course option
Prerequisites: first-year students who have not taken or placed out of a 100-level ENGL course
Enrollment Preferences: none
Distributions: Division II Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ENGL; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under AFR
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AFR 136 Division II ENGL 136 Division I

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