1492: States of War
ENGL 301
Fall 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 an ongoing "war" against people of African descent -- one that goes beyond the terrestrial plane. It anchors systems of representation, racialization, colonization, and religion with which we must reckon -- ones that preceded it and that we continue to inherit. The course uses the specific historical frame of 1440 into the late 18th century. This frame holds with reference to Frank B. Wilderson III's notion of when the "gratuitous violence" of the Middle Ages begins "to mark the Black ontologically" and Sara E. Johnson's notion of "slavery in the plantation Americas as a 'veritable state of war.'" Thus, we will read symptomatic, primary historical documents and fiction about "blood," race, African slavery, and geography and being (including 15th and 16th century Castilian law, sundry genres that represent early Spanish colonial Mexico, Santo Domingo (contemporary Dominican Republic), Cuba, and French Saint Domingue (contemporary Haiti)), as well as contemporary fiction, cinema, and theory that configure historicity via the Caribbean. We will read sometimes for imperial notions of sovereignty, selfhood, force, indigeneity, (anti)blackness, property, labor, and the relation between conceptions of the heavens and "just wars" on earth, and other times for Caribbean notions and narratives that are at war with said Western theological and onto-epistemological schemata. Conceptually, the course thinks from and/or about Caribbean literary studies, black critical theory, demonology, scholasticism, mysticism, the functions and tropes of (anti)blackness in the discursive formation of the New World, Vodou(n) in the Haitian Revolution, colonialism and international law, 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: (African American Studies Minor)(African American Studies)(Caribbean Studies Minor)(English)(Social, Cultural and Critical Theory Certificate) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
These will slightly vary each semester, but there will always be a Printed Course Pack for students (order via Wesportal), a selection of novels and a scholarly monograph (for sale at RJ Julia). The Course Pack might include selections from: Aristotle, Christopher Columbus, Lope de Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Bartolomé de las Casas, Moreau de Saint Mery, Louis-Narcisse Baudry des Lozières, the Laws of the Indies, the Code Noir, and René Descartes. Selections from the work of the following contemporary scholars and theorists will also appear in the Course Pack: Jacques Derrida, Cecilio Cooper, Sylvia Wynter, Sara E. Johnson, Nahum Chandler, Dixa Ramírez D'Oleo, Ronald Mendoza de Jesús, Frank Wilderson III, Frantz Fanon, Calvin Warren, Axelle Karera.
A selection of these books will be available at RJ Julia Booksellers:
Dayan, Joan, HAITI, HISTORY, AND THE GODS; Trouillot, Evelynn, THE INFAMOUS ROSALIE; Carpentier, Alejo, THE HARP AND THE SHADOW; di Benedetto, Antonio ZAMA; Morrison, Toni A MERCY.
We will discuss the films THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV (Serra, Albert) and UNA PELEA CUBANA CONTRA LOS DEMONIOS (Gutiérrez Alea, Tomás), as well as digitized versions of imperial naval and commercial maps, pilotes, ledgers, letters, etc. held at the John Carter Brown Library and Archivo de Indias.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Reading journal, Short close reading essay, Sound/multi-media experiment (with a written component), final research "letter." |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Contributes to the fulfillment of the following ENGL major requirements: TH; LH1; AL, WL, Research Option |
| Instructor(s): Ellis Neyra,Ren Times: .M.W... 01:20PM-02:40PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 5 | JR major: 6 | | |
| Seats Available: 19 | 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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