SPAN 4170 - [Shipwrecks: Disaster, Deliverance, and Capitalism]

(crosslisted)
(also FREN 4170, LATA 4170) (LA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Conducted in English.

G. Aching.

This course examines actual and imagined shipwrecks as the means by which witnesses, survivors, writers, and artists reflect on the relations between disaster and deliverance, civilization and barbarism, and the relationship between necessity, freedom, and contingency in capitalism. The course begins with classical readings on shipwrecks and castaways, such as selections from Homer’s Odyssey, the shipwreck of St. Paul, and Horace’s shipwrecked sailor. Subsequent readings focus principally on shipwrecks within colonial frameworks, such as Alvar Nüñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Castaways, Luis de Góngora’s Solitudes, William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Daniel Defoe’s Robin Crusoe, and Jean-Baptiste Savigny’s and Alexandre Corréard’s Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816, as well as on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Critical readings include selections from Marx’s Capital, Peter Linebaugh’s and Marcus Rediker’s The Many- Headed Hydra, and C.L.R. James’ Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways.