Module ENGL40430: The Literatures of Slavery

Department: English Studies

ENGL40430: The Literatures of Slavery

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To introduce the study of a range of literatures written over a period of more than two hundred years in response to slavery and the black diaspora. This will involve examination of the historical and intellectual contexts of these cultural productions, literary traditions and critical readings as well as close textual analysis. Analytic, interpretive, critical and persuasive skills nurtured at undergraduate level will be further developed and self-directed research will be fostered.

Content

• This module will explore a selection of the various literatures in English written in response to slavery and the subsequent black diaspora. The texts will be examined, mainly prose but including some poetry, span over two hundred years, ranging from early slave narratives to contemporary fiction which addresses a past involving slavery. Particular emphasis will rest on literature emergent from North America but a significant proportion of Caribbean and British writing will also be integral, in part as a reflection of the transatlantic nature of the slave trade and the interactions ensuing from it. The work of black and white authors will be placed side by side to facilitate debate about representation and histories of oppression. Preoccupations with memory and themes of haunting, trauma and resistance are shared by many of the texts that will be under consideration. Reading lists will vary from year to year and accommodate some response to the developing interests of the group, but will normally include a selection from the works of such authors as Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, Mary Prince, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Edgar Allen Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, Pauline E Hopkins, W E B DuBois, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Margaret Walker, Jean Rhys, Robert Hayden, Derek Walcott, Ishmael Reed, Octavia Butler, David Bradley, Toni Morrison, Sherley Anne Williams, Caryl Philips, Charles Johnson and Earl Lovelace. Contextual reading and relevant critical and theoretical frameworks will also be brought to bear, for example those frameworks proposed by Paul Gilroy, Hazel Carby and Henry Louis Gates.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to articulate their in-depth knowledge of the literatures of slavery and diaspora and utilise various critical and analytical frameworks.
• They will be able to demonstrate a sophisticated awareness of the forces and considerations shaping literary responses to racial slavery and its legacies.
• Insight into the negotiation of subjectivity and of ethnic, national, and gendered identity enacted in a wide range of texts.
• Understanding of complex debates about representation and histories of oppression.
• Appreciation of the development and influence of cultural and literary traditions.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• Advanced critical skills in the close reading and analysis of literary texts;
• An ability to demonstrate advanced knowledge of a chosen field of literary studies;
• An ability to offer advanced analysis of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature;
• An ability to articulate and substantiate at a high level an imaginative response to literature;
• An ability to demonstrate an advanced understanding of the cultural, intellectual, socio-political and linguistic contexts of literature;
• An ability to articulate an advanced knowledge and understanding of conceptual or theoretical literary material;
• An advanced command of a broad range of vocabulary and critical literary terminology.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• An advanced ability to analyse critically;
• An advanced ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in structured and systematic ways;
• An advanced ability to interpret complex information of diverse kinds through the distinctive skills derived from the subject;
• Expertise in conventions of scholarly presentation and bibliographical skills;
• An independence of thought and judgement, and ability to assess acutely the critical ideas of others;
• Sophisticated skills in critical reasoning;
• An advanced ability to handle information and argument critically;
• A competence in information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access;
• Professional organisation and time-management skills.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Through a variety of teaching activities and approaches, seminars will facilitate the development of communication and critical skills. Sessions will introduce broad topics and genres, contexts and frameworks to aid conceptual understanding and specific texts for analysis as well as encourage individual interpretation and enquiry. Formative written work and consultation with the module tutor will operate as learning tools, allowing the investigation and testing of ideas and readings. Two summative assignments will assess the competencies and outcomes outlined above and foster advanced independent study.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

All students will be offered a 15-minute 1:1 essay consultation which will form the formative assessment component for this module. This activity will not be centrally timetabled and will be organised between the tutor and the student as schedules permit.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University