Course Description
This course honors the political intent of slave narratives—to advocate for the freedom of enslaved people—while approaching them as sophisticated works of literature. We will pay particular attention to the material conditions and rhetorical techniques through which the authors of slave narratives (enslaved or formerly enslaved people who may have had limited literacy, money, and autonomy) reached their audience (primarily middle-class white people with money to spend on luxury items like books).
We’ll begin by examining Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a fantasy of colonial enslavement that illustrates many of the foundational myths underlying the enslavement of Black and Indigenous peoples. We’ll then turn to autobiographical narratives by Ukawasaw Gronniosaw, Mary Prince, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs to explore how they demolish those foundational myths. Slavery was a transnational phenomenon, and we will read accounts written by authors from Nigeria, Ghana, the Caribbean, the US, and Britain. Our final text, Yaa Gyasi’s 2016 novel Homegoing, will help us think about how enslaved and formerly enslaved writers position themselves in the geography of slavery, and where, if anywhere, they felt at home.
Course Outcomes
- To understand the slave narrative as a transnational genre that responded to specific cultures of enslavement throughout the Atlantic world
- To explore the intersections of race and gender by examining how men and women experienced and represented slavery differently
- To identify how slave narratives were shaped by the material conditions of enslavement
- To become better critical readers, writers, and thinkers, capable of closely analyzing texts and making connections between them
Required Texts
William Andrews and Henry Louis Gates, eds. Slave Narratives (Library of America)
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince (Penguin)
Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing (Vintage)
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (Penguin)
additional readings will be available on Canvas