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Ghana and/in the Black Atlantic The Americas and/in the Black Atlantic England and/in the Black Atlantic Course Description This syllabus is an attempt to envision a trio of courses offered simultaneously at NYU Washington Square, NYU Ghana, and NYU London. The thematic structure of the course is such that over a series of modules, students will have both common readings and readings that pertain specifically to their location in the Global University. We imagine that each course will unfold independently, though we’d like to utilize the technological means at our disposal to share lectures/speakers/and even discussion sections. (A lecture or discussion scheduled for the morning hour in NY could Skype with a course in the late afternoon in either London or Ghana, for example). Our intention in developing this course is 3-fold. The subject manner lends itself to the pedagogical outcomes of spending a semester at one of the Global sites. By immersing themselves in the history of a crucial aspect of the development of the Atlantic world, students will be well positioned to critically engage their own experience of Atlantic modernity. We also envision student research in archives proximous to all three sites as part of an ongoing effort to contribute to digital archiving project concerning the black Atlantic world. We will work to develop partnerships with institutions like the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton (London) http://bcaheritage.org.uk/ and to bolster ongoing relationships with the Public Records and Archives Administration Office in Accra http://www.praad.gov.gh/ and the Lapidus Center at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York http://www.lapiduscenter.org/ . What follows is a course proposal that is broken into two parts. The first part we conceive as a template that would be shared across the three sites. The last 4 weeks of the semester would be site-specific, affording students more intimate engagement with the local. Over the course of the semester we will consider the Black Atlantic as a socio-cultural and economic space from the fifteenth-century first arrival of Africans in the ‘New World,’ through the rise of slavery in the Americas, continuing on to slave emancipation and decolonization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Finally, we conclude with contemporary black life in the Atlantic world. During this class we will trace the origins and importance of the concept of the Black Atlantic in the context of European imperial expansion and the transformation of indigenous structures of governance in the Americas, paying special attention to shifting social relations that shaped community formation among people of African descent and laid the foundations for political and economic institutions. This course introduces students to “The Black Atlantic” as a concept and pragmatic force in the world through careful discussion of the texts and ideas through which it is constituted. Our inquiry concerning “The Black Atlantic” will be guided by five conceptual questions: The Question of Structure How do people build and sustain a social system? The Question of History How is a social system transformed? The Question of Historicity How do people register social transformation? The Question of Subjectivity What makes us who we are? The Question of Alterity What makes us different from each other? Topics to be discussed include civilization, slavery, colonialism, capitalism, freedom, and justice. We will approach these broad concerns through focused engagement with African enslavement and settlement in Africa and the Americas; the development of transatlantic racial capitalism; variations in politics and culture between empires in the Atlantic world; creolization, plantation slavery and slave society; the politics and culture of the enslaved; the Haitian Revolution; slave emancipation; and contemporary black Atlantic politics and racial capitalism. Required Texts The following texts are required and are available for purchase at the NYU bookstore and are on reserve at Bobst Library. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Beacon, 1995). Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus (eds.), Slave Revolution in the Caribbean: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint And the San Domingo Revolution (London: Allison and Busby, 1994). Mary Prince (Sara Salih, ed.), The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave (London: Penguin Books, 2000 [1831]). James Williams (Diana Paton, ed.), A Narrative of Events, since the First of August, 1834 by James Williams, an Apprentices Labourer in Jamaica (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001). Vince Brown, The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).
Please note, when you have a reading from NYUClasses you are required to print it out and bring it with you to class and recitation. Failing to do so will seriously affect your class participation grade. Assignments You should leave this course with an introduction to the overlapping phenomena that comprise the history of the African Diaspora—modern economies, race, cultural practices, religious beliefs, and the mobilizing of power to both construct and oppose racial and economic hierarchies. You should also leave here with a clear understanding of what it means to write and read in an historical mode both critically and analytically. You have a series of written assignments due over the course of the semester. These assignments are designed to support our work in the classroom and recitations and must be handed in on time. It goes without saying that all written work must be original, any plagiarism will result in an “F” in the course. Plagiarism will not be tolerated in any form. Please read NYU’s statement on Academic Integrity here: http://cas.nyu.edu/object/bulletin1012.ug.academicpolicies#ACADEMIC , and visit Northwestern University’s website http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html on avoiding plagiarism for a comprehensive discussion of what plagiarism entails. Papers must be written using standard Chicago Manual of Style (also known as Turabian) citation form. This form uses footnotes for references, not parenthesis. Any paper that doesn’t follow standard citation guidelines will be returned to you without a grade. Citation format is quite specific—even if you believe that you know how to construct your citations use this website http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/within/turabian.html as a starting point. Short Primary Source Papers. You have a total of four of these papers due over the course of the semester. They are short (3-4 pages) and are intended to be an exercise in reading and interpreting evidence. Please note that while these are relatively short, formal citation practices are required (these are not stream-of-consciousness response papers). Film Response Papers. When we watch films, you are required to post a 2-page discussion to NYUClasses before the recitation following the screening of each film. These discussions should briefly describe the film, and then discuss how the film illuminates or interrupts the readings and lectures that precede it. These response papers are part of your recitation grade. There will be a final exam. We reserve the prerogative to administer short quizzes, without notice, if we see the need. Recitation Participation 30% Short Papers 30% Exams 40% It is your responsibility to keep copies of all written work and to regularly check NYUClasses for any updates or changes to the course schedule. Defining Terms Key Questions: What is historiography? What factors have shaped the development of the Black Atlantic concept in the 20th and 21st centuries? LECTURE: Situating Us In Time And Space/Origin Stories READINGS Eric Williams, “ Massa Day Done (Public lecture at Woodford Square, 22 March 1961),” Callaloo, vol. 20, no. 4 (1997), 725-730. Paul Gilroy. 1993. The Black Atlantic, Chap 1, “The Black Atlantic as Counterculture of Modernity,” 1-40. Michel Rolph-Trouillot, “The Power in the Story,” chapter 1 in Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 1-31. Historicity and the Black Atlantic Key Questions: How should we approach the slave trade? Are questions of morality relevant to the historical study of African enslavement in the New World? Some scholars have argued that slavery formed the basis of modern capitalism in the Atlantic World. Do you agree? What role did Africans play in the slave trade’s transformation of the Atlantic World? Question: What is the difference between the concept of The Black Atlantic and the concept of the African diaspora? When did the Black Atlantic become institutionalized as a way to discuss the plight of African-descended peoples? When constitutes a diasporic relationship? Is it about cultural transmissions and retentions? What evidence should scholars use to establish diasporic connections? What is the role of history in relationship to heritage? Which conditions give rise to diasporic ties? Under which circumstances does the discourse of diaspora emerge? LECTURE: A Trade In Persons Readings John Thornton, “The Development of commerce between Europeans and Africans,” chapter 2 in Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 43-71. Eric Williams, “The Development of the Negro Slave Trade,” Chapter 2 in Capitalism and Slavery (London: Andre Deutsch, 1964), 30-50. Olaudah Equiano’s. 1789. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. LECTURE: Making Human Commodities READINGS Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Harvard, 2007), Chap 2, “Turning African Captives into Atlantic Commodities,” pp. 33-64. Stephan Palmié. 1996. “A Taste for Human Commodities.” Slave Cultures and Cultures of Slavery. Olaudah Equiano’s. 1789. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. 3. Economic systems as cultural systems What does Enslavement mean? What does slavery “MAKE”? How does the story of enslavement get told? What alternatives are there to the stories that we may already know? LECTURE: What Slavery Produces—Crops Readings
WPA Slave Narratives http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html Judith Carney, “This Was “Woman’s Wuck,” chap 4 in Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Harvard, 2001) [NYUClasses] LECTURE: What Slavery Produces--Identities READINGS Phyllis Wheatley. 1838. Poems of Phyllis Wheatley: A Native African and a Slave. Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative [NYU Classes] Readings: Alexander X. Byrd, "Eboe, Country, Nation, and Gustavus Vassa's Interesting Narrative," The William and Mary Quarterly January 2006 [J-Stor] 4. Freedoms Taken and The Force of Law What factors led to the Haitian Revolution? What were the connections between events in France and Saint Domingue in the revolutionary era? Was the Haitian Revolution merely an extension of the French Revolution? What was the transnational context of the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath? How might an understating of Haiti’s position in the 19th century world inform our view of modern day Haiti? Further: What is the role of force in constituting the Black Atlantic? How was the deployment of force instrumental for shaping the social aspirations and political possibilities of peoples inhabiting the world of the Black Atlantic? LECTURE: The Haitian Revolution Readings
“The Haitian Constitution, 1805,” in Dubois and Garrigus (eds.) Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 191-196. Léger Félicité Sonthonax, “Decree of Liberty, August 29, 1973,” in Dubois and Garrigus (eds.), Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 120-125 Toussaint L’Ouverture, “A Refutation of Some Assertions in a Speech Pronounced in the Corps Législatif…by Vienot Vaublanc, 1797,” in, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean 147-153. LECTURE: Genres of Force Readings
• N. Klein. 2010. “A Creditor not a Debtor Nation.” • Julius Scott. 2010. “Negroes in Foreign Bottoms.” Origins of the Black Atlantic. • Peter Hudson. 2013. “The National City Bank of New York and Haiti, 1909-1922.”
Screening: Atlantico negro: na rota dos Orixás = Black Atlantic: on the Orixás Route in recitation. Readings
Michel Rolph-Trouillot, “An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-event,” chapter 3 in Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 70-108. Readings: Lorand Matory, “The English Professors of Brazil: On the diasporic Roots of the Yoruba Nation,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 41 (January 1999): 72-13 [j-stor] LECTURE: Religion and Ritual in the Black Atlantic Readings
• R. F. Thompson. 1983. Flash of the Spirit, pp. xiii-xvii. • V. Brown. 2003. “Spiritual Terror and Sacred Authority in Jamaican Slave Society.” Slavery & Abolition. • K. Ramsey. 2011. Spirits & the Law (excerpt). • Kodi Roberts. 2015. Voodoo and Power. • Aisha Beliso-De Jesús. 2015. Electric Santería. 6. The Origins of Civil Society Question: What is the relationship between the infrastructure of legalized enslavement and the emergence of “modern” civil society? LECTURE: Financial Reverberations Readings: Anita Rupprecht, “Excessive Memories: Slavery, Insurance and Resistance,” History Workshop Journal, Issue 64, Autumn 2007, pp. 6-28 [Project Muse] LECTURE: Carceral Reverberations Readings: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894, (Chicago, IL: Privately Published, 1895). 7. Scramble for Africa Question: Does the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade signal new relationships between Europe, The Americas, and Africa? What are the relationships between Empire and Culture? How is Africa rendered in the Western imaginary in the 20th century in ways connected to and distinct from earlier imagery? LECTURE: Acquisitions of Africa—Scrambles. Readings
The Treaty of Berlin (1885) George Washington Williams’ Open Letter to King Leopold on the Congo (1890), in Adelaide Cromwell Hill & Martin Kilson, eds., Apropos of Africa: Sentiments of American Negro Leaders on Africa From the 1800s to the 1950s (London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1969). [NYUClasses]. LECTURE: Acquisition of Africa--Exhibitions Annie Coombes, Chap 2-3, Reinventing Africa. [NYU Classes] 8. Renaissances and Nationalism—Culture and Anti-Colonial Critique in the Early Twentieth Century Atlantic How do formerly enslaved people navigate their own relationship to the Caribbean and to Africa? What is the relationship between an African past and the notion of a collective present? How do Diasporic peoples produce and defy 20th century racial solidarity? LECTURE: Haitian Occupation and Empire Readings
James Weldon Johnson, Self Determining Haiti, pts. 1, 2, and 3, The Nation, 8/28/1920, Vol. 111 Issue 2878, p236-238; 9/11/1920, Vol. 111 Issue 2880, p295-297, 9/25/1920, Vol. 111 Issue 2882, p345-347 [EBSCO] . [NYU Classes] LECTURE: Ethnographic Display and Violent Response Readings
NYTimes articles on Ota Benga. Please read in order of date of publication [NYClasses] Pamela Newkirk, Part 1, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga 9. Consuming Pleasures?: Reconfigurations of Black Capital in the late-20th and 21st Centuries What is racial capitalism in the contemporary moment? What is Post-Racialism? What can afro-billionaires of the black Atlantic tell us about capitalism, race and ideology? Given what we have learned about the transatlantic slave trade, how have configurations of racial capitalism changed over time? What do the readings suggest about how racial capitalism is organized now? How do you view the concept of ‘post-Blackness’ in light of national and global formations of capital? Is the concept valid? Why or why not? LECTURE: Consuming Pleasures—Flipping the Script Readings: Solange, “Losing You” http://www.thefader.com/2012/10/02/video-solange-losing-you/ “The Sapeurs,” The Fader.com, http://www.thefader.com/2012/10/05/the-sapeurs-style-wars/#/0 Tom Downey, “The Beau Brummels of Brazzaville,” The Wall Street Journal, 9/29/2011 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903927204576574553723025760.html Touré, “Keep It Real is a Prison,” in Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What it Means to be Black Now (Free Press, 2011). [NYU Classes] ‘From Marcy to Barclays’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g69xgcH6DHg ‘Life and Times: Barclays Documentary,’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBvyEGQeHnk Listen: Kanye West ft. Syleena Johnson, ‘All Falls Down’ (Roc a Fella, 2003) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kyWDhB_QeI Kanye West and Jay-Z, ‘Niggas in Paris’ (Roc A Fella, 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG_dA32oH44 LECTURE: Consuming Pleasures—Shopping and Travels Film Viewing; Stephanie Black. Life and Debt, (New York: New Yorker Video, 2003) In Recitations. Dena Montague, “Stolen Goods: Coltan and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” SAIS Review, 22 (Winter-Spring 2002): 103-118 [Project Muse] James Smith and Jeffrey Mantz, “Do Cellular Phones Dream of Civil War? The Mystification of Production and the Consequences of Technology Fetishism in the Eastern Congo,” in Inclusion and Exclusion in the Global Arena, ed. Max Kirsch (New York: Routledge, 2006) [NYUClasses] LECTURE: Sports and Racial Logics Screening: Once We Were Kings**Film response due in recitation** Michael Ralph, “Prototype: In Search of the Perfect Senegalese Basketball Physique,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 24 (February 2007): 238 – 263 [J-stor] Malcolm Gladwell, “Offensive Play: how different are dog fighting and football?” The New Yorker. October 19, 2009 [NYU Classes] 10. Re-Circulations What are some of the intellectual and affective (emotional) difficulties of grappling with the slave past in the contemporary moment? How does one accept tragedy without losing sight of hope for a libratory political future? LECTURE: The Complicated Notion of Home Saidiya Hartman, The Time of Slavery, The South Atlantic Quarterly 101.4 1(2002) 757-777 http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/south_atlantic_quarterly/v101/101.4hartman.html; LECTURE: The Black Atlantic and the Here and Now WASHINGTON SQUARE 11. Commemorations Lectures: Burial Grounds and Sacred Grounds Explorations in the Sylvester Manor Archives 1649-1996 MSS 208, Fales Library 12. Movements 13 14 LONDON 11. 12. 13. 14 ACCRA 11. 12. 13. 14. | The Black Atlantic Directory: content -> dam -> nyu dam -> Embargo until 12/17/12 dam -> October/November 2015 Teacher's Guide Table of Contents dam -> Boston College Athletics Advisory Board Annual Report, 2011-12 dam -> Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Office for Project Services dam -> Boston College Athletics Advisory Board Annual Report, 2010-11 nyu -> Version and Approvals nyu -> War and Negotiation in Two Dimensions Jeffrey Alan Carnegie nyu -> Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr nyu -> What Are They Talking About? #Oral History in the 21st Century Download 66 Kb. Share with your friends:
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