IAS A6020 Comparative Slaveries of the Americas
This graduate course explores the rise and fall of African slavery in the Americas from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Through readings discussions and films/documentaries, we shall analyze how slavery became the predominant mode of production in the Americas until the late 19th century. This course surveys the history, cultures and political economy of the Atlantic slave trade and its ongoing legacies in the Americas. In many ways, the themes of the course mirror the development of research interests and sensibilities concerning the defining of modernity and the emergence of new world transformations of European and African identities and transnationalisms. While we will concentrate on the Americas, there is little doubt that this forced migration was one element in an intertwined set of global exchanges and trade circuits. The consequences of extending new forms of labor, technology and capital alongside colonial exploration and expansion were germane in the development of ideologies of race and nationality on three continents. In this sense the Atlantic system conjoins multiple social practices, languages, and religions into new narratives of globalized identities. One of the goals of this course is to explore African Diasporic cultural expression and slave resistance in all of its manifestations. Another important objective of this course is to read and reflect upon the historical underpinnings of race relations and the legacies of racism across the Americas and internationally.
Contact Hours
3 hr./wk.