ENGL 403 - Race before Race: the Literature of the Early Modern Transatlantic

Race is a fiction, but its effects in the world are real. Students study the literary sources of racial typologies and race-based subordination in the early modem world. In works by white and Black authors, ranging from William Shakespeare’s Othello (1603) to Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1689) to Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative (1789), students read narratives of colonial encounter, accounts of slave trafficking and the experience of bondage, philosophical discussions of human variety, and many other works that present less familiar practices of race-making and racial self-understanding. Students learn the early modem literary history of race-making so that they are better equipped to think critically about how race is made to matter in our time.

Credits: 1
Corequisite: None
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: No First-year, Sophomore
Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts Practices: None
Core Component: None

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