Early Mod Hispanic Black Atlan

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This graduate seminar examines the variety of artistic, cultural, historical, and literary representations of black Africans and their descendants—both enslaved and free—across the Spanish-speaking world and the United States. Taking a chronological frame, the course will begin its study of Blackness in medieval and early modern Iberia and its colonial kingdoms in the Americas. From there, we will continue our trajectory and examination of the status of Blackness conceptually and ideologically in the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America. Toward the end of the semester, we will concentrate on black Africans by focusing on Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan African immigration in present-day Spain, and the politics of Afro-Latinx culture and its identity politics in the United States. Throughout the semester, we will interrogate the following topics in order to guide our class discussions and readings: bondage and slavery; freedom and emancipation; Critical Race Studies and racial-ethnic difference; animal imageries and human-animal studies; geography and maps; Black Feminism and Black Queer Studies; material and visual cultures (e.g. beauty ads; clothing; cosmetics; food; Blackface performance; royal portraiture; reality TV and music videos); the Inquisition and African diasporic religions; immigration and Post-colonial Studies. Although the seminar will focus primarily on materials originating in Spanish, we will make comparative analyses that will frame our critical approaches to a so-called “early modern” Blackness and Black experience through a rigorous study of literary texts and historical documents from English, French, Portuguese, and other non-Western languages. And, to that effect, we shall see how Blackness conceptually and experientially is subversively fluid and performative, yet deceptive and paradoxical. TAUGHT IN ENGLISH.