ENG269
Narrating Slavery
English
BC
Subject code
ENG
Course Number
269
Department(s)
Instructor(s)
S. Houchins
Course Long Title
Narrating Slavery
Cross Listed Courses
Description
This course examines selected autobiographical writings of ex-slaves; biographical accounts of the lives of former slaves written by abolitionists, relatives, or friends; the oral histories of ex-slaves collected in the early to mid-twentieth century; and the fiction, poems, and dramas about slaves and slavery (neo-slave narratives) of the last hundred years. Students consider these works as interventions in the discourses of freedom-religious, political, legal, and psychological-and as examples of a genre foundational to many literary works by descendants of Africans in diaspora. The course surveys early works written by slaves themselves, such as broadsides and books by Jupiter Hammond, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs; dictated biographies such as those by Esteban Montejo, Mary Prince, and Sor Teresa Chicaba; and fictional works inspired by the narratives, such as texts by Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones, Charles Johnson, Michelle Cliff, Sherley Ann Williams, and Colson Whitehead. Recommended background: one 100-level English course or AFR 100.
Modes of Inquiry
Analysis and Critique [AC]
Writing Credit
No writing credit
Departmental Course Attributes - Major/Minor Requirements
(Africana: Diaspora)
INDS Program Relationship
IDAF - AFR Program, IDAM - AMST Program
GEC This Course Belongs To
-