Writing the Middle Passage
Cordula Lemke David Wachter
Comments
From the 16th to the 19th century, several million Africans were deported to the Americas as part of the transatlantic slave trade. The collective trauma of what later became known as “the Middle Passage” continues to haunt Carribean and North American cultural imagination. In this seminar, we will discuss literary representations of this historical injustice and its aftermath in the form of transatlantic slavery. Our course will mainly focus on two texts: Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Marlene NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! (2008). But we will also look at passages of other novels, theoretical texts, works of visual art and life writing. We will scrutinize the literary strategies employed in “writing the Middle Passage” and discuss issues such as violence, trauma, haunting, exploitation, economics and law, community and healing.
This class will deal with violence and racism, and the texts contain graphic and disturbing scenes of racialized and sexualized violence. We will do our best to make our seminar a space where we can engage empathetically and thoughtfully with such content.
Preparation
Please purchase and read Morrison’s novel in the following (inexpensive) paperback editions: Toni Morrison: Beloved, Vintage 1997 (ISBN 978-0099760115). Other text will be available on Blackboard.
close14 Class schedule
Regular appointments