Slavery and Its Legacies

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Chattel slavery, described as America’s original sin, permeates American culture, despite historical and contemporary attempts to deny its lasting effects. That is, the racial and economic ideas that supported and propelled slavery still exist and have taken on new forms. They have also contributed to the systemic racial inequalities and restricted liberties that currently impact Black communities. In this course, we will pay attention to how and why Black people—from writers, to film producers, to elected officials, to activists, to educators—have worked diligently to record and acknowledge this pivotal period of American history. We will pay careful attention to the mechanisms they use to demonstrate how the aftermath of slavery effectively kept slavery alive from Reconstruction until now. We will look at a wide-range of texts and cultural objects and we will consider the solutions they propose to engage the historical and contemporary effects of slavery.