Color Lines: The U.S. South and the Colonial World
AMST 290
Fall 2024
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01
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The American South has always been a unique society. But it has never been exceptional or isolated from the world. Although located north of the equator, it shares many features with the Global South. Its history of conquest, slavery, patriarchy, rebellion, and white supremacy makes it similar to many tropical and semitropical countries that have been colonized by Western powers in modern times. In this course we will study the American South from the times of European colonization through the Civil Rights era. We will establish comparisons between the history of the American South and the histories of the Global South. How did the displacement of Native Americans in Georgia compare to the treatment of Indigenous populations in Australia? How did slavery in Virginia compare to slavery in Brazil? How did the emergence of the oil industry in Texas compare to that of Iran? How did Jim Crow in Mississippi compare to apartheid in South Africa? How did the struggle for civil rights in Alabama compare to struggles for decolonization in Vietnam?
In addition to a comparative approach, we will look into how Southerners engaged with people from the Global South. We will study primary and secondary sources that illuminate encounters between Southerners and foreigners. International trade, religious missions, infrastructural enterprises, political activism, and military operations, among many other events, put the American South in touch with the Global South. These encounters remade modernity, placing questions of racism, regionalism, and colonialism at the forefront of political and intellectual debates. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Primary and secondary sources written by authors such as Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Joseph Conrad, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Frantz Fanon, C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, and Jamaica Kincaid
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Examinations and Assignments:
Short essays based on readings, lectures, and discussions |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
N/A |
| Instructor(s): Saba,Roberto Times: ..T.R.. 10:20AM-11:40AM; Location: FISK302; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 25 | | SR major: 5 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 1 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 5 | FR: 5 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 7 | 1st Ranked: 1 | 2nd Ranked: 2 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 4 |
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