Unit name | Literatures of Slavery |
---|---|
Unit code | ENGL30113 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Josie Gill |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of English |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This course aims to introduce students to the rich and complex literature on slavery from 1600 to the present. Students will be encouraged to consider the different political and aesthetic strategies employed by writers at different historical moments to represent slavery and to ask critical questions about the construction of race and identity. Earlier parts of the course will consider the relationship between slavery and different political ideas of liberty, the intersection of slave narratives with other 18th and 19th century literary forms, and examine paratexts and how different voices are presented and framed. In the latter part of the course will students will consider the influence of postmodernism and critical theories of trauma, memory and gender in relation to neo-slave narratives, and the relationship of such literature to contemporary ideas about race and racism.
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Weekly:
1 x three hour seminar
1 x one hour lecture
1 x 3000 word Portfolio (75%) [ILOs 1-6]
1 x Group Presentation or Group Poster Presentation (25%) [ILOs 1-3, 6]
Ignatius Sancho, Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African (1782)
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince (1831)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901)
Fred D’Aguiar, The Longest Memory (1994)
Andrea Levy, The Long Song (2010)
James Basker, ed. Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems About Slavery 1660-1810 (2005)