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CS92PROD
Junior Colloquium: Envisioning Enslavement, Documenting Freedom
AFAM 301
Fall 2017
Section: 01  

Accounts of enslavement, self-emancipation, and abolition in America have long been hailed for their gripping portraits of the unspeakable, the intensity of first hand accounts, and their unwavering calls to action. What is required to create these sophisticated testimonies and exhortations? What tools do novelists, journalists, activists, scholars and filmmakers deploy as they bear witness to a troublesome, sometimes elusive, and always stirring history? We will pair written and visual materials as we discuss the politics of historiography, memory, presence, and absence. We will use well-known and understudied primary sources; work in local, regional, and state archives and historic sites; and study classic and contemporary film as we think about core and essential scholarly imperatives of African American studies.

Authors will include a range of unknown individuals as well as influential writers and activists such as Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Pauline Hopkins, Lawrence Hill, Sherley Ann Williams, Colson Whitehead, and Octavia Butler. Films may include Amazing Grace, Belle, The Journey of August King, The North Star, The Retrieval, and Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS AFAM
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (AFAM-MN)(AFAM)
Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
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