ASRC 4206 - Slavery, Subjectivity, and Life Writing

Spring. 4 credits.

Co-meets with ASRC ASRC 6206.

G. Aching.

What pressures does slavery exert on the subjectivity and life writing of legally enslaved subjects? Under what conditions, in what ways, and at what costs do slaves render themselves as moral subjects in autobiographical writing? If freedom and enslavement are never absolute conditions, to what understanding of freedom do enslaved, writing subjects aspire? The purpose of this seminar is to examine subjectivity and then interrogate its meanings in light of qualifiers, such as black, enslaved, submissive or heroic. The corpus of readings include works by Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, Juan Francisco Manzano, Frederick Douglass, Mary Prince, Solomon Northup, and Soujourer Truth. Critical/theoretical readings by Hegel, W.E.B. Du Bois, Judith Butler, Hortense Spillers, and others.