ENG 351 - The Slave Narrative (1)

This course explores the U.S. slave narrative genre and its complicated literary-historical context. Our investigation will be broad: we will study “famous” slave narratives that have defined the genre as well as lesser-known narratives that push the boundaries of the genre; we will study antebellum as well as post-bellum narratives; we will study both men and women’s slave narratives; and we will study narratives written by formerly enslaved people themselves as well as narratives written with or about them. Several themes will be important to our course: writing and publication context; representation and absence; and exceptionalism and representativeness. This course counts toward group iii (19th-century) of the English major, toward the Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice major, and toward the GSS major. The class can function as a Research Seminar fulfilling the capstone requirement for the Literature and Society, and the Multimedia and Digital Writing concentrations of the English major. Prerequisite: writing (W) course, ENG 201, ENG 202, ENG 215, or ENG 225 Alternate years or every third year.
(Humanities) (Intercultural Literacy Intensive)