Eighteenth Century Literature and the Black Atlantic
ENGL(AFAM) 4470
3 hours
Eighteenth Century Literature and the Black Atlantic
Course Description
An examination of long eighteenth-century British literature with an emphasis on issues of slavery, race, colonialism, and multiculturalism in the Atlantic world. Authors will likely include Aphra Behn, Penelope Aubin, Sarah Scott, James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Charles Ignatius Sancho, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Hannah More, and Robert Wedderburn.
Athena Title
18th Cent Lit Black Atlantic
Prerequisite
Two 2000-level ENGL courses or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 3000-level ENGL course) or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 2000-level CMLT course)
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will develop a critical understanding of the Black Atlantic in the eighteenth century, as depicted in literature written in Britain and across the Atlantic, by British people and by people of African descent.
Students will become skilled at raising and discussing (in both written and oral forms) critical questions prompted by this literature.
Topical Outline
The course outline will vary from instructor to instructor. Topics covered will likely include the following: postcolonial approaches to the Enlightenment, slavery and the slave trade, abolitionism, rebellion and revolutionary politics, mercantile capitalism, European colonialism, criminality and incarceration, genre, literary canon formation, Atlantic religions, gender and sexuality, and print culture. A possible list of texts and authors might include:
- Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
- Penelope Aubin, The Noble Slaves
- Sarah Scott, The History of Sir George Ellison
- James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince
- Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” and “Farewell to America”
- Charles Ignatius Sancho, Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, African
- Johnson Green, The Life and Confession of Johnson Green
- Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery
- Hannah More, Slavery, a Poem
- William Earle, Jr., Obi; or, The History of Three-Finger Jack
- Robert Wedderburn, The Axe Laid to the Root and The Horrors of Slavery
- Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (in excerpt)
- Gretchen Gerzina, Black England
- Stefan Wheelock, Barbaric Culture and Black Critique (in excerpt)
