Blk Histories in Fiction Film

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Scholar Michel-Rolph Trouillot contends that “not any fiction can pass for history” even as he also acknowledges the “overlap between what happened and that which is said to have happened.” In this course, we will explore the relationship between scholarly histories about black life in the US and the African Diaspora and the powerful stories that recount or provide alternatives to these histories (or the sociohistorical process) through written fiction narratives, film, and other media forms. The course will survey a range of histories and representations of black life from the early 1600s to the present day with particular emphasis on key moments in African American history. In examining a variety of forms that produced and popularized knowledge about blackness and black life in the past we will also address the ways these modes of knowledge production shape our understanding of the sociohistorical process, conceptions of change and memory, and our perspective on the present moment. As we cover this terrain we will be attentive to the possibilities and limits of using historical narrative, fiction, and films to detail black lived experiences including issues of difference, power, resistance, and survival. We will also examine the ways these histories about the past change over time and take on new urgency in particular moments.