Afro-American Studies 253 - Pre-Civil War Black Writers

A survey of African American and Black Atlantic writings in the Age of Revolution, from the late eighteenth century to the beginning of the Civil War, with particular emphasis on how writers negotiated the promises and ideals of the revolutionary period. Course considers a variety of genres (autobiography, speeches, fiction, drama, poetry, etc.) and explores how different forms of writing were mobilized in the struggle for emancipation. Other topics may include the beginnings of the African American novel; the drama of slavery; relationship between written and expressive culture; speeches and Abolitionism; the rise of black periodical and pamphlet culture; black narratives in the Atlantic World, including slave narratives, travelogues, natural histories, and other fictional and non-fiction accounts.