Admission requirements
None.
Description
Slavery’s destructive impact is still felt today. For more than four centuries, the Americas, Europe, and Africa were inextricably linked via the transatlantic slave trade. Estimates suggest that more than 12.5 million enslaved Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic Ocean to North and South America and the Caribbean. According to Paul Gilroy, this created the “Black Atlantic,” a “culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once.” Although slavery was formally ended in the Americas in the course of the nineteenth century, its legacy remains highly visible in all societies touched by this mass forced migration. This course will examine the politics of remembering and forgetting slavery and its legacies from a transatlantic perspective. We will read Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and a number of novels inspired by Douglass’s and other slave testimonies including Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (2016). We’ll also watch a number of films: D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), Victor Fleming’s Gone With the Wind (1939), and Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning film Twelve Years A Slave (2013).
We’ll also engage with the contested memory of the American Civil War and read articles about the memorialization of slavery throughout the Atlantic world. Finally, we will study how slavery is remembered and represented in museums and historic sites under the influence of new trends in museum studies and in the context of public debates. To do so, we will visit a museum exhibition about slavery together (e.g. the Rijksmuseum or the Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam); subsequently student groups will select a museum, or historic and/or heritage site of their choice and make a video presentation of the memory of slavery (or, in some cases, lack thereof) presented there.
Course objectives
After completing this course, students can:
Research how slavery has been represented, contested, and remembered (or sometimes “forgotten”) in autobiographical and fictional texts and films, as well as museum exhibits and public heritage sites;
Critically analyze and apply relevant theoretical concepts from trauma theory and memory studies (trauma versus narrative memory, witnessing, multidirectional memory);
Critically analyze the application of recent trends in museum studies (“the new museology”, museum as “contact zone,” museum as enabler of social change);
Present the results of their independent research, both individually and in a group;
Present their research findings orally and in written communication in English (discussion, essay, video script).
Students also learn:
to analyze a curated exhibit/heritage site or tour systematically and critically (as if it were a text), making use relevant theoretical concepts (see above);
as a group, to summarize and communicate main findings in a video presentation (video script and Storyboard, animated powerpoint, voice recordings, etc.) and to learn to post this on digital platform Pitch2Peer (Brightspace);
basic video production skills;
to reflect critically on the process of producing the video and the final product (group video) and to provide online peer review of the videos of other groups.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
Active Participation/coöperation in class/group
Essay, paper
Group Video Project
Attendance is compulsory. Missing more than three tutorials means that students will be excluded from taking the exam (in casu essay and other assignments) and resits. Consequently, the course cannot be completed during that particular academic year. Unauthorized absence also applies to being unprepared and/or not bringing the relevant course texts to class.
Weighing
Active Participation/coöperation in class/group (10%); minimum grade required: 6.0
Essay, paper (60%)
Group Video Project (30%)
The final mark for the course is established by determination of the weighted average combined with additional requirements. The additional requirement is a minimum of a 6.0 for the participation grade.
Resit
The participation grade must be a 6.0 or above. Only for the paper grade can a resit be arranged.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass (e.g. Dover Thrift ed. ISBN 978-0486284996)
Octavia Butler, Kindred (e.g. Headline ISBN 978-1472258229)
Toni Morrison, Beloved (e.g. Vintage ISBN 978-0099511656)
Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing (e.g. Penguin ISBN 978-0241975237)
Links to additional readings on trauma, memory and museum studies will be posted on Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website
Registration Exchange
For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For practical questions, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal
Remarks
Not applicable.