Critical Social Inquiry 0185 - Slavery & Abolition/Americas

This course will familiarize students with histories of African enslavement throughout the Americas. We will explore critical aspects of the roots and routes of enslavement and consider displacement, dislocation, dehumanization, and resilience of African peoples in the New World. This course, designed for first and second-year students, yet suitable for third and fourth-year students with an interest in diaspora studies, will pursue several questions: What is the world that slavery made? What strategies of survival did enslaved people employ? How has slavery impacted conceptions of nation, shaped formations of borders, and facilitated the "making of the Atlantic world?" Focusing chiefly on the U.S., the Caribbean, and Brazil, we will take an interdisciplinary approach that includes history, literature, and politics in our pursuit of slavery's relevance to contemporary debates about race, nation, community and belonging.

Power, Community and Social Justice Independent Work Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research