1492: States of War
ENGL 301
Spring 2025
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
AFAM 303 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate |
This course approaches 1492 as a signifier and time-stamp of modernity. It signifies and time-stamps an ongoing war against people of African descent. It grounds systems of representation, racialization, and colonization with which we must reckon. By reading richly symptomatic, primary, historical documents about "blood," race, geography, and slavery in Saint Domingue/Santo Domingo, as well as some contemporary fiction, art, and critical theory that re-narrate and theorize Caribbean history, we will focus on the historical frame of 1440 into the 18th century. This frame holds with specific reference to Frank B. Wilderson III's notion of when the "gratuitous violence" of the Middle Ages begins "to mark the Black ontologically." We will read sometimes for imperial notions of sovereignty, Man, selfhood, force, race, land, property, and labor, and other times for Caribbean notions and narratives that are at war with said imperial, Christian, Western onto-epistemological schemata. Conceptually, the course thinks from and about Caribbean literary studies, Black critical theory, aspects of Enlightenment thought, and deconstruction. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AFAM-MN)(AFAM)(CBST-MN)(CSCT)(ENGL) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
There is a Course Pack of this course's readings. We will study digitized versions of imperial naval and commercial maps held at the John Carter Brown Library, Archivo de Indias, and in other archives, as well as primary texts of different genres (e.g., pilotes, ledgers, letters, legal documents), including the writing and thinking of Christopher Columbus, Moreau de Saint Mery, Baudry des Lozieres, Rena© Descartes, and select works of Spanish scholasticism and Islamic philosophy. We will also read selections from some of the following scholars and writers, in addition to the aforementioned: Cecilio Cooper, Sylvia Wynter, Jacques Derrida, Sara E. Johnson, Colin Dayan, Evelynne Trouillot, Alejo Carpentier, Dixa RamÃrez-D'Oleo, Ronald Mendoza de Jesús, Frank Wilderson III, Gayatri Spivak, Hortense Spillers, Aimà Césaire, Axelle Karera, and other.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Reading notes journal, Short close-reading paper, Sound recording and Annotation assignment, Final research paper |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course fulfills the following English Major requirements: American Literature, Literary History 1, World Literature, Theory.
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| Instructor(s): Ellis Neyra,Ren Times: .M.W... 08:20AM-09:40AM; Location: FISK314; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 6 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 8 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 2 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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