32103

SoSe 22: Narratives of Enslavement and Emancipation

Hannah Spahn

Kommentar

Forms of slavery and enforced labor have existed all over the globe in most periods of world history, including today. What makes US-American slavery different is its complex relationship to the contemporaneous development of a modern democracy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although the transatlantic Enlightenment and the American Revolution brought along an unprecedented wave of critique that led most Northern states to abolish slavery, the institution persisted, and even became more entrenched, in the Southern states during the early national and antebellum periods. In this seminar, we will approach the problem of slavery in an increasingly polarized democratic culture through the lens of autobiographical and fictional narratives about personal experiences of enslavement and emancipation. While the genres of the slave narrative and the novel will figure prominently in our discussions, we will also recur to contemporaneous essays, letters, and poetry to trace the intellectual history of evolving modern discourses of slavery, freedom, “race,” and nationhood. Schließen

12 Termine

Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung

Do, 12:00 - 14:00 12 Termine

Do, 21.04.2022 12:00 - 14:00

Dozenten:
Prof. Dr. Hannah Spahn