32102

WiSe 20/21: Innocents, Saints, and Apostates: Slavery and Antislavery in the Colonial Period

Cameron Seglias

Information for students

This course will have to be organized as digital seminar. Details tba on Blackboard.

Comments

In this course, we will follow and critically examine shifting discourses and practices surrounding both New World racial slavery and antislavery. Although our focus throughout will be on the eighteenth-century Anglophone Atlantic, we will also delve further back into the early modern period to unpack the connections between the emergence of colonialism and capitalism. Moreover, emphasis will be given in particular to the diverse voices that opposed human commodification, from religious and political to enslaved and formerly enslaved writers. To ensure that the historical content remains manageable, the course will be divided into five chronological and thematic blocks: 1.) the origins of racial slavery; 2.) antislavery in Quaker Pennsylvania in the 1720s and 30s; 3.) antislavery and colonial war in the 1750s and 60s; 4.) antislavery in the period of the American Revolution; and 5.) the Haitian Revolution. Not only will we read eighteenth-century texts and secondary historical and theoretical material, but we will also consider contemporary literature that imaginatively explores the condition and legacies of slavery. Some of the authors we will read include Toni Morrison, Marcus Rediker, John Woolman, Vincent Brown, Eric Williams, M. NourbeSe Philip, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, C.L.R. James, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot. In addition to regular participation and a final paper, students will also be asked to write two short responses to two sessions of their choice. Please be sure to purchase a copy of Toni Morrison’s novel A Mercy (2008) before November 13th. We will read this short novel in its entirety (ca. 160 pages) for our session on November 20th. N.B.: Since this course will meet on-campus, enrollment is limited to 28 students. As with everything in these uncertain times, however, this format might be subject to change. If you would like to join the class, but have concerns about in-person attendance, please contact Cameron Seglias at Seglias@gsnas.fu-berlin.de. close