Slave Narrative and Freeman/Freewomen Fiction of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Catalog description

Will cover the African American slave narrative, from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, along with free-woman and free-man writings of the later nineteenth century and possibly the early twentieth century. Readings typically include works by such authors as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, and Solomon Northup. The course will consider contemporary debates surrounding the question of authenticity as well as current views of how slave narratives merit aesthetically. The course also interrogates questions pertaining to how the slave narrative challenges conventional notions of autobiography and how the early black novel confronts received and developing notions of the U.S. novel.