The primary objective of this course is to allow students to 
examine the history of southern slavery through a wide variety 
of genres and mediums, in order to understand the ever-shifting 
relationship between historical reality as determined by 
scholarly research and the ways in which those realities are 
interpreted by others -- fiction-writers and film makers -- to 
instruct or entertain a far wider audience, and how they 
reflected racial attitudes at the time at which they were 
produced.

Examples of fictional works to be studied: 
  Harriet Beecher Stowe, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN 
  Herman Melville, BENITO CERENO
  Mark Twain, PUDD'NHEAD WILSON or HUCKLEBERRY FINN
  William Faulkner, several short stories
  William Styron, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER 
  John Ehle, THE JOURNEY OF AUGUST KING
  Toni Morrison, BELOVED or her new novel A MERCY 
Examples of films to be studied: 
  "Amistad"
  "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman"

To elaborate on the use of the sources named above, and how 
they will be utilized, I plan to link each fictional work 
and/or film with a historical document or scholarship through 
which we will explore the juxtaposition of historical reality 
and other types of "truths" drawn from the literary or film 
treatments. For example, I would use Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN 
to explore the abolitionist movement of the late antebellum era 
and how the novel and its impact served to stir popular 
sentiment and intensified the politicalization of anti-slavery 
forces that drove the sectional crisis of the 1850s; I'd also 
use the novel to explore northern perceptions of slave life and 
slave treatment and the sources Stowe drew on (most notably 
Josiah Henson's narrative) to create her remarkably powerful 
fictionalized account. I'd use Melville's BENITO CERENO in 
conjunction with Spielberg's film "Amistad" to explore the 
Atlantic slave trade and legal and humanitarian issues raised 
by the actual Amistad case and Melville's novella loosely based 
on it. I'd use Toni Morrison's BELOVED to look at issues of 
fugitive slaves and their experiences after moving North, as 
illustrated by the Margaret Garner story -- an actual incident 
of a slave mother's killing of her own children to prevent them 
from being captured and sent back into slavery after their 
escape. Styron's THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER can be easily 
compared w/ the actually confession he made to a lawyer in 1831 
before his execution, and allows entre into a range of issues, 
including slave rebellion, Turner's iconic stature within much 
of the black community then and well into the 20th century, 
which made Styron's depiction of him so objectionable and 
controversial when the novel appeared in 1967. I'd use Mark 
Twain's PUDD'NHEAD WILSON to explore issues of miscegenation 
and mixed race identities, and use several court cases, 
particularly that of Sally Muller in New Orleans, that served 
as inspirations for Twain's detective novel; and I plan to use 
John Ehle's novel THE JOURNAL OF AUGUST KING and the film 
version of it to examine slavery in non-traditional settings 
like So. Appalachia (the basis of much of my own scholarly 
work.) Novels and film adaptations of Alex Haley's ROOTS and 
Ernest Gaines' THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN will 
illustrate a new popular interest in the slave experience and 
its legacy in the 1970s and beyond. I would likely spend a full 
two weeks on UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, and a week to a week and a half 
on most of the other works, depending on the length of reading 
assignments and supplementary materials used with them. As an 
honors course, I would like to see students writing a number of 
papers -- both reaction papers to the novels and films, and 
research projects involving deeper exploration into the issues 
raised by the assigned work.
  "Roots"