Course Description
Exploration of the ways in which American slavery has been conveyed in American popular culture through the juxtaposition of scholarly work, novels and short stories, and film, ranging from the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison to that of Alex Haley and Steven Spielberg.
Athena Title
SLAV FACT FICT FILM
Prerequisite
Permission of Honors
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
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.
Topical Outline
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use of the sources named above, and how they will be utilized, I plan to link each fictional work and/or film with a historical document or scholarship through which we will explore the juxtaposition of historical reality and other types of "truths" drawn from the literary or film treatments.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"
Syllabus