Narratives of Slavery

This course analyzes circum-Atlantic accounts of racial slavery in various forms, including the slave narrative, iconography, historiography, film, and performance. In so doing, it interrogates how factors such as form and/or genre, race, gender, power, and geography influence narrative and knowledge production regrading slavery. Key themes the course addresses include racial slavery as civil and social death, ancient and modern/colonial genealogies of slavery, gendered experiences of bondage, regionalism in U.S. historiography of slavery, and the un/spoken and un/representable nature of atrocity. The course also examines contemporary narratives that underscore the significance that racial slavery brings to bear upon the present.