Professor: Elizabeth Bohls
4 credits
For four centuries, the slave trade carried millions of captive Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas. European colonists used slave labor to grow cash crops and build fortunes. We’re living with the consequences of history’s largest inter-continental mass migration in what theorist Paul Gilroy calls the black Atlantic world, where cultural forms from two continents have meshed and evolved in the aftermath of slavery’s crimes. We’ll first read Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, set in 1600s colonial North America, a “disorganized world” where a cast of orphans and strays, “bartered, given away, apprenticed, sold, swapped, seduced,” struggle to survive. We’ll then consider primary texts, historical and critical work, and modern artistic renderings of the British slave trade, colonial slavery, and the abolitionist movement, including Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez’s graphic history of women-led slave revolts. We’ll end with Julie Dash’s film Daughters of the Dust about early 20th-century Gullah culture, where West African traditions survive as a new generation prepares to depart for modern, “civilized” life.
Graduation Requirement: This class will fulfill an Arts and Letters Colloquium and Global Perspectives (GP) cultural literacy requirement. If a student already has completed an Arts and Letters Colloquium, this course will fulfill both of the following requirements: an Elective Colloquium and the Global Perspectives (GP) cultural literacy requirement.