WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2014-2015       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Slavery and the Literary Imagination
AFAM 222
Spring 2015 not offered
Crosslisting: ENGL 222, AMST 237

Enslavement in America and the New World was inextricably linked to the written word. What, then, does it mean to write the story of enslavement, loss, forced migration, liberation, and restoration? How does one tell the story of enslavement when that effort depends on articulating the unspeakable? The works and writers with which we will work this term will prompt us to consider how one revisits history and what is required to imagine, write, and rewrite the stories and histories of people, places, and nations. We will discuss the ways in which specific literary forms enable, contain, and transform unwieldy, complicated, and stunning stories of enslavement, liberation, self-determination, activism, racialization, and nationhood. Our readings will include primary works and materials such as memoirs, novels, short stories, plays, poems, letters, and essays by writers such as William Wells Brown, Charles Chesnutt, Frederick Douglass, Jupiter Hammon, Pauline Hopkins, Mattie Jackson, Mary Prince, and Phillis Wheatley. Additional primary materials will include writings published in 19th-century newspapers such as the "Liberator" and the "North Star."
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA AFAM
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: None

Last Updated on DEC-26-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459