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Narratives of Slavery

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Narratives of Slavery AMST 1900C Professor Patricia Lott Spring 2014 Office: 194 Meeting St. Day and Time: Wed., 3-5:20 pm Office Hours: Tu. & W. 12-1 Location: 101 Thayer Street (VGQ 1st FL) 116E Office Phone: 401-863-7658 Email: [email protected] NARRATIVES OF SLAVERY This course examines a range of ways that the story of racial or “new world” slavery has been narrativized—that is presented as or in the form of a narrative. It approaches narrative very broadly as the re/presentation of an event, a history, a biography, an experience, etc., in which particular details are put into a written story, visual image, monument, speech, film, or other mediative and/or representational form. The main modes on which this course centers include the slave narrative, critical texts, iconography, monuments, historiography, and film. One of the seminar’s overarching questions is whether or how the form a narrative takes (e.g. written language, the spoken word, a visual image) or the “genre” that mediates its particulars (e.g. pictorial, monument, historiography, or autobiography) shapes its content and/or meaning. It also interrogates how factors such as race, gender, and geography influence narrative production regarding slavery. In evaluating the issues of form, content, and social positioning, participants will also ponder Black abolitionist, lecturer, novelist, and playwright William Wells Brown’s claim that “Slavery has never been represented, slavery never can be represented” (1847). If it is indeed the case that the atrocities of racial slavery are ultimately unrepresentable and unspeakable, then what does one make of the kind and scope of representations produced by historical and contemporary figures—Brown prominent among them? Are such materials best evaluated from Jean-François Lyotard’s charge that the duty of the writer and the activist—and, we might add, the artist, the filmmaker, etc.—in relation to terror and the “unpresentable” is “not to supply reality but to invent allusions to the conceivable which cannot be [re]presented,” to “be witnesses to the un[re]presentable” (1984)? Among the other central inquiries the course seeks to address are: What are some of the dominant narratives about slavery? What do they represent as the institution’s most defining features? How do those representations enable or elide critical understanding of slavery, and how do they compare to alternative narratives? What functions do (anticipated) readerships and viewerships play in slavery’s “emplotment,” that is, its placement into the form of a narrative? Is “new world” slavery best emplotted as an ancient institution (i.e. one whose roots lie in antiquity as discerned most vividly in pre-modern Greek and Roman societies), or as a modern-colonial one, that is an institution born of Europe’s colonial modernity as manifested in the rise of capitalism, the nation-state, industrialization, and ethnocentric notions of individualism, reason, scientific thought, and other Enlightenment principles, as enabled by colonialism? Further, what do prevalent narratives reveal about slavery’s constructions of difference in being (e.g. race, gender, and humanness) and how those constructions impacted people’s experiences of bondage, whether they were enslaved or masters and mistresses? What implications does slave status’s basis in matrilineal descent pose for delineating the Lott Syllabus 1 institution’s gendered features? Moreover, how does the conventionally regionalist narrativizing of slavery in the United States (e.g. as a “peculiar” Southern institution, without regard to its national and global scope), constrain comprehension of slavery’s foundational centrality to the meaning and making of the “new world” more broadly, and of the United States particularly? The course concludes with an examination of narratives that underscore the weighty significance that racial slavery continues to bear upon the present. Course Objectives: (1) To delineate how extant narratives “emplot” some of the most constitutive features of racial slavery as it was practiced in various transatlantic sites, especially those in the Caribbean and the United States. (2) To ascertain how knowledge about slavery is constrained or enabled by the forms through which it is mediated. (3) To cultivate in students the critical reading skills needed to evaluate narratives of slavery with attentiveness to the cultural, historical, social, and political milieus in which they were produced. (4) To develop students’ abilities to closely and critically analyze cultural artifacts and critical texts using a number of different approaches. Required Texts: Arna Bontemps, editor, Five Black Lives: The Autobiographies of Venture Smith, James Mars, William Grimes, The Rev. G.W. Offley, and James L. Smith Henry Box Brown, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave Harriet Wilson, Our Nig Required Films Posted on OCRA (Online Course Reserves): Beloved Burn! Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North The required texts are available for purchase at the university bookstore. Students should bring hard copies of the above listed texts to class on the appropriate days. Additional required and supplemental readings will be uploaded to Canvas, the university’s online course management system. The required films are posted on OCRA and have been made accessible via Canvas (under the E-Reserves tool). Course Requirements 1. Attendance and Participation (20%)—This seminar is participation-intensive. Each student is required to attend class regularly and engage in discussions of the assigned readings, screened films, Lott Syllabus 2 and other course materials. You should complete required readings each week and be ready to participate in a thoughtful, productive, and consistent manner. Participation also involves completing in-class writing or group exercises designed to enhance understanding of the materials covered by the course. These exercises also give me insight into students’ writing and analytical abilities and allow me to suggest strategies for improvement. Typical in-class assignments include writing responses to assigned readings or screened films and analyzing documents or visual representations presented in class. I will permit one (1) unexcused absence without penalizing this percentage of your grade. Upon a second unexcused absence, however, I will deduct from this percentage of your grade until the fifth unexcused absence, at which time you will not receive credit for either attendance or discussion. In order for an absence to be excused, it must fall within the purview of an emergency (e.g. illness, family crisis, etc.) or other compelling event, and be supported by official documentation. In the event that an emergency prohibits you from attending class, contact me as soon as possible so that we can determine the best way for you to make up missed work. If you know of your absence ahead of time, you should email me regarding the particulars. Moreover, I consider you absent if you come to class more than twenty minutes late other than for reasons beyond your control. I will count accumulated tardiness totaling twenty minutes or more as one absence. 2. Reading Responses (15%)—Each student is expected to complete three (3) one to two page responses to the weekly reading(s) of their choice (12-point, plain font, black ink, 8.5” x 11” paper, double-spaced, and 1” margins on all sides). You should submit your responses in hard copy to the instructor before the class session begins on the days from which you select readings. 3. Short Papers (40%)—Each student is required to compose two (2) short essays (5 to 7 pages in length). I will provide specific information about these papers during the semester well before their due dates. You may select one of these short papers to serve as the basis for your longer final paper. I also encourage students to produce creative projects, such as photographic or filmic essays accompanied by appropriate written descriptions of their content and meaning. You should submit hard copies of your papers on their respective due dates before the class session begins. I will not accept email attachments, drop box files, or other electronic versions of your assignments. Papers turned in after the due dates will result in a deduction from your grade, except when you provide written documentation of an emergency to support your late submission. The penalty for late submissions is a half-grade drop for each calendar day that the paper is overdue (e.g. from an A- to a B). All papers should be printed in 12-point plain, font using black ink on 8.5” x 11” paper, double-spaced with 1” margins on all sides, and numbered and stapled in correct order. You should also include your name, the date, the course number, the instructor’s name, and the assignment (e.g. “Short Paper 1”) on your paper’s first page. Please refrain from submitting a coversheet. You should also supply each of your papers with an appropriate title and diligently proofread your completed work. You may format your paper in any one of the standard manners, including MLA or Chicago Style. 4. Final Paper (25%)—Each student is required to complete the final paper (15 pages in length). As with the short papers, I will provide specific information about the final paper during the semester well before its due date. The same guidelines for formatting listed above for short papers apply to Lott Syllabus 3 your final assessment as well. As concerns submission, you should bring a hard copy of your final paper to my office by the specified deadline. Devices Please do not use your phone, tablet, computer, or other electronic device for non-course related activities during class. Students are allowed to use their laptops to access required readings posted online, but all other devices should remain powered off for the duration of class.
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