GLS 592: Enslaving America
Instructor: Mark Boren
Throughout its history, the
United States has often been referred to as "the Land of Freedom,"
but the U.S. has also hosted tremendous, sometimes abominable, systems
of human control, as well as notions of "freedom." We will address
the implicit legacies of enslavement, and a significant portion of the
course will be devoted to studying how the language and forces of human
control continue to influence us today in a variety of ways, from race
relations to the power of capitalism and construction of gender.
Texts include (Check with the instructor to ensure these books are
those required for the current course offering.)
- Douglass, Autobiography;
- Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl;
- Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets;
- Morrison, The Bluest Eye;
- Grimsley, Winter Birds;
- Foucault, Birth of the Prision.
*Image Source: William O. Blake, The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade (Columbus, Ohio, 1857), p. 97 from website -- http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/medium/Blake1.JPG
Last Update: November 21, 2003
