Black Romanticism
Engl. 404 (MWF 1:25-2:15, 322 Sackett)
Course Summary
How black is Romanticism? This question will be the central concern of our course, which will investigate the roots of British and American culture in the routes of trans-Atlantic economic trade of the late eighteenth century. We will contest the implied racial and national purity of British culture by examining its production at the hands of racial and ethnic others. If the economic vitality of late eighteenth-century England derives from the traffic in black slaves and the labor of black sailors, something similar can be said of its cultural production. From this perspective, Romanticism turns multi-ethnic, a motley chorus inconceivable without the contribution of formerly mute minority voices. This course will sully the purity of British culture by testing local and national practices against global exchanges and mobilities. The result: a new understanding of Romanticism as a mixed cultural heritage. We will end the course by examining the persistence of that heritage in the music of reggae and hip-hop. Readings will include selections from Gilroy, Linebaugh and Rediker, C.L.R. James, and Brathwaite, as well as Equiano, Cugoano, Blake, More and the abolitionists, Hunt, and Wederburn. We will also look at the political cartoons of the period.
Syllabus
404.doc
Engl 404: Black Romanticism Office: 15 S. Burrowes
Youngquist, pby1@psu.edu Hours: M, F 12:30-1:30-2:30
Spring 2008 W 3:30-4:30
Required texts:
Gilroy, The Black Atlantic
Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra
James, Black Jacobins
Richardson and Lee, eds., Early Black British Writing
Price and Price, eds., Stedman’s Narrative
Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
Lewis, Journal of a West-India Proprietor
Earle, Obi, or the History of Three-Fingered Jack
Hugo, Bug-Jargal
Austen, Mansfield Park
Brathwaite, Middle Passages
Texts available through electronic reserve—listed under Engl. 561*
Requirements:
1) attendance, participation, etc, (10%): no more that two absences
2) weekly drop box responses, 100 words (10%)
3) musical artifact, 300 words on wiki (5%)
4) cultural artifact, 300 words on wiki (5%)
5) performance report with bibliography of primary and secondary material (20%)
6) seminar paper—or equivalent project (50%)
Readings:
Geneaology, History, Subjection
Jan. 14 Introduction
16 Foucault, “Genealogy, Nietzsche, History”*
Roach, “Introduction: History, Memory, and Performance”*
18 Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”*
21 OFF—Martin Luther King Day
23 Gilroy, The Black Atlantic
25 Gilroy, The Black Atlantic
28 Baucom, Spectres of the Atlantic, Pt. 1*
30 Baucom, Spectres of the Atlantic, Pt 1*
Feb. 1 Walvin, “A View From London,” “Traumas”*
Report: Sugar
4 Lineabaugh and Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra
6 Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra
8 Rediker, from The Slave Ship*
Report: Sailors, pirates, blackjacks
Revolutionary West Indies
11 Stedman, Narrative
13 Stedman, Narrative
15 Lloyd, “Race Under Representation”*
Report: Torture
18 James, Black Jacobins
20 James, Black Jacobins
22 James, Black Jacobins
Report: Haiti in British Culture
25 Hugo, Bug Jargal
27 Hugo, Bug Jargal
29 Hugo, Bug Jargal
Report: Maroonage
The Living Dead
Mar. 3 Earle, Obi, or The History of Three-Fingered Jack
Brathwaite, “Jamaican Slave Laws”*
5 Earle, Obi
7 Earle, Obi
Report: Obi and Voodoo
SPRING BREAK
17 Lewis, from Journals of a West India Proprietor
19 Lewis, from Journals
21 Lewis, Castle Spectre*
Report: Slavery and the Gothic
24 Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
26 Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
28 Caretta, “Questioning Equiano’s Identity”
Report: Sierra Leone
Black London
31 Sancho, Gronniosaw—in Early Black British Writing
Apr. 2 Robert Wedderburn—in Early Black British Writing
4 Mary Prince—in Early Black British Writing
Report: Blacks in London
7 Austen, Mansfield Park
9 Austen, Mansfield Park
11 Austen, Mansfield Park
Report: Blacks in Painting, portraiture, and caricature
14 Phillis Wheatley—in Early Black Writing
16 William Blake, “Visions of the Daughers of Albion,” “America”*
18 Wordsworth, “On Toussaint L’Overture”*
Edgeworth, “The Grateful Negro”*
Report: Abolition and emancipation
(fear of a) Black Planet
21 Brathwaite, Middle Passages
23 Brathwaite, Middle Passages
25 Reggae and Dub
Report: Rastas in London
28 Free Jazz: Sun Ra
30 Funk: George Clinton
May 2 Hip Hop: Cool Herc, Grandmaster Flash
Secondary Sources
Bolster, Jeffrey W. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997.
Walvin, James. Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire. 2nd ed. London: Blackwell, 2001.
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