Course Description
In this course, we’ll read poetry, fiction, letters,
and treatises from the eighteenth century that take black lives as their focus.
Long predating movements for civil rights or political equity, the social,
colonial, and economic conditions of this era make blackness an embattled
category. The “triangular” slave trade between Europe, Western Africa, and the
North American colonies flourished in this time, as did the English wealth that
depended on slave labor in the Caribbean. Many Britons celebrated this
prosperity, considering people of African descent the rightful property of white
plantation-owning classes. Others decried the violence and injustice of slavery
on ethical and religious grounds, calling for its abolition. The voices of black
individuals themselves are less numerous than their European-born counterparts,
but even more powerful, speaking from first-person experiences of enslavement
and manumission. Our readings will take us through the variety of these
perspectives on black lives to pursue two main questions. One, how was black
life—personhood, value, sovereignty, humanity, gender—defined in this period?
And two, what, if anything, can this distant historical past tell us about our
present, punctuated as it is by racialized police violence, mass incarceration,
and political and economic underrepresentation?
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to
identify and define the common forms and genres of literature written between
1660 and 1800, including but not limited to drama, poetry, periodical essays,
treatises, satire, and the novel. Students will also be able to identify and
analyze discourses around race, blackness, slavery, empire, and gender; key
dates in the rise and fall of the slave trade; the relationship between England
and its North American colonies; how black lives unfolded in England, and how
writers of color represented (or didn’t) raced experience; and the historical
legacy of stolen labor, forced migration, and other forms of physical and
cultural violence. Students will also develop their skills in analyzing texts
through close readings, in constructing written arguments about literary texts,
and in conducting research using library resources and in incorporating that
research into their own arguments.
These outcomes will be assessed through class
discussions, worksheets, short papers , and research papers.
Required Texts and Materials
Note: you must bring your copies of required
texts to class on the dates they’re being discussed, and you must use the
editions listed below since we are also using their footnotes, introductions,
and appendices.
AddAll and
BookFinder are good ways to find used copies; searching by ISBN
will get you the correct edition.
Required Work
| Close Reading Worksheets (7) Click here to download a blank copy. | 15% of course grade |
| ECCO Report | 15% of course grade |
| Short interpretive paper (4 to 7 pages) including revision option | 20% of course grade |
| Researched interpretive paper (8 to 10 pages) |
30% of course grade |
| Proposal and annotated bibliography for researched interpretive paper | 10% of course grade |
| Participation | 10% of course grade |
Schedule of Readings and Assignments (subject to change)
| Week 1 | T 8/27 | Introduction to the course |
| R 8/29 |
Black Literary Consciousness Ignatius Sancho, Letters of Ignatius Sancho (1782): editor’s introduction 13-22; and Letters I, II, V, VII, IX, XII, XIII, XV, XVII, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXVI, XXXV, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL, XLIa, XLII, XLIII, XLVII, XLVIII, LVII, LVIII, LXIa, LXI, LXIII, LXV |
|
| Week 2 (CRW due this week) |
T 9/3 | Sancho, Letters all of vol. II and Laurence Sterne’s reply, 312-316 |
| R 9/5 |
Paul Gilroy, from The Black Atlantic (1993), pgs. 15-19,
32-35 DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk excerpt |
|
| Week
3 (CRW due this week) |
T 9/10 |
Phyllis Wheatley, “To the University of Cambridge,” “To the
King’s…Majesty,” “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” “A Hymn
to the Morning,” “On Imagination” (1773) |
| R 9/12 | Wheatley, “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth,” “To S.M., a Young African Painter,” “To His Excellency General Washington,” “A Farewell to America” (1773) | |
| Week 4 | T 9/17 |
"Book Production" Letterpress Studio visit |
| R 9/19 | No class; professor at conference | |
| Week
5 (CRW due this week) |
T 9/24 |
Accounts of the Slave Trade Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (1688), 34-68 William Snelgrave, from A New Account of Guinea (1754), 253-59 of Oroonoko Catherine Gallagher, Introduction, 3-25 of Oroonoko |
| R 9/26 | Behn, Oroonoko, 69-100 | |
| Week
6 (CRW due this week) |
T 10/1 | Equiano, Interesting Narrative (1789) vol. I |
| R 10/3 |
Thomas Southerne, from Oroonoko, a Tragedy (1695), 103-131
of Oroonoko Richard Ligon, from A True and Exact History of…Barbados (1653), 355-365 of Oroonoko John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative of…the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796), 377-390 of Oroonoko ECCO Report due |
|
| Week 7 | T 10/8 |
Workshop for shorter paper: bring 2 copies of your rough draft Downloadable version of workshop assignment here |
| R 10/10 | Ramesh Mallipeddi, Spectacular Suffering (2016) excerpts | |
| Week 8 | T 10/15 |
Short paper due Introduction to research: finding and using literary scholarship |
| R 10/17 |
English abolitionism Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evils of Slavery (1787) 9-59 |
|
| Week
9 (CRW due this week) |
T 10/22 |
Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments, 59-111 |
| R 10/24 |
Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The
Case for Reparations” (2014) Belinda, “Petition ... to the Legislature of Massachussetts” (1787) |
|
| Week
10 (CRW due this week) |
T 10/29 |
Anna Letitia Barbauld, Epistle to William Wilberforce
(1792) Hannah More, “Slavery: A Poem” (1788) |
| R 10/31 |
William Cowper “The
Negro’s Complaint” (1788) William Blake, “The Little Black Boy” (1789) |
|
| Week 11 | T 11/5 |
Gender, Marriage, and Mixed-Race Status Anonymous, The Woman of Colour: A Tale (1808), 53-104 proposals/annotated bibliographies due |
| R 11/7 | Woman of Colour 105-146 | |
| Week 12 CRW due this week) |
T 11/12 | Woman of Colour 147-189 and editor’s introduction, 11-42 |
| R 11/14 | Peacock, “The Creole” (Appendix A in The Woman of Color) | |
| Week 13 | T 11/19 |
Workshop for researched paper: bring 2 copies of your draft (at
least 6 pages) Downloadable version of workshop assignment here |
| R 11/21 | Appendices C, D, and E in The Woman of Color | |
| Week 14 | T 11/26 | Bauer and Mazzotti, excerpts from the introduction to Creole Subjects in the Americas |
| R 11/28 | Thanksgiving holiday; no class | |
| Week 15 | T 12/3 |
Researched papers due Course conclusion |