Termine im WS 2012/13 - Englisches Seminar - Ruhr-Universität ...

Nella Larsen: Passing (1929).
Wallace Thurman: Infants of the Spring (1932).
050 652 Freitag
“I have no accurate knowledge of my age” – American Slave Narratives, 4 CP
2 st. di 14-16 GABF 04/614 Süd
Slave narratives are accounts of the lives of slaves who escaped to freedom. They
gained wide acceptance and international readership as authorized discourses on the
cruelties of slavery and played a major role in the abolitionist movement. We will
discuss a number of narratives, deal with their historical contexts and will also have a
look at other writings that were inspired by slave narratives, which are today
regarded as the „locus classicus of African American literary discourses.“
The reading load in the course will be heavy. Students are advised to start reading
the narratives by Olaudah Equiano, Nat Turner, Frederic Douglass, and Harriet
Jacobs as well as Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin before taking the course.
Texts:
1. slave narratives
Henry Louis Gates and William L. Andrews, eds. Slave Narratives (College). Library
of America, 2002. (Please, make sure to buy this paperback edition)
2. novels
- Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin (be careful to buy the unabridged
edition, not a version edited for children)
- Ishmael Reed Flight to Canada
3. a reader with secondary material will be provided.
Credit requirements:
Übung: attendance, active participation, assignments
Seminar: requirements for Übung + presentation and 15-page paper.