Global History of Slavery

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course examines the development of forms of slavery in world history. Understandings of slavery have, with relatively few exceptions, focused on the history of Atlantic slave world and as a result have been dominated by the plantation complex model of slavery. Besides examining in detail the development of plantation slavery in the Atlantic world, this course will explore various forms and systems of slavery that existed in social, cultural, political and economic systems in Europe, Africa, Arabia, and the Indian Ocean. Using a comparative approach, this course will problematize and challenge the view of slavery as constituted exclusively by the dichotomous categories of chattel/free. Our examination of these themes will revolve around a series of thematic questions, which will consider while exploring the materials and rhetorical history of slavery. - What is slavery? How is it defined in different contexts? - Given the diversity and variability of human bondage over time, can we come up with a definition that encompasses all of those experiences? If not, why not? If so, what's the value of a universal definition? - What is the difference between slaveholding societies and societies with slaves? - How does one become a slave? Did slaves exercise agency? If so, under what circumstances? - What role did gender play in the experience of slavery? - What is the role of race, religion, and culture in the justification of slavery by slave owning societies? Was race a factor in South Asian, Arabian, and African slaveries?