André Kaenel kaenel@univ-nancy2.fr IEP Nancy 2010-2011 Humanities Fundamental Course Fall 2010 Slavery and American Memory This course examines representations of slavery in the United States, from the early days of the Republic to the present. Its focus is less on slavery as an age-defining moment in US history than on the many “cultural texts” it has produced: photographs, paintings, engravings, slave narratives, pamphlets, songs, sermons and, especially, movies. The relations between the past and the present, fact and fiction, history and myth constitutes the backbone of the course. Week 1 Remembering (and Atoning for) Slavery (9 Sept): Reading: David Brion Davis, “The Central Fact of American History” Suggested study questions: What are some of the challenges and difficulties which historians of American slavery in the United States face today? One of the best historians of slavery, David Brion Davis, argues for example that slavery is at once “the central fact of American history” and that it suffered from “momentous neglect.” How does Davis propose to deal with this paradox? And how does the movement for “slavery reparations” (please do a quick web search with this expression to understand it) propose to deal with the heritage of slavery? What do you think of the “reparations” movement? Week 2 Condoning Slavery (16 Sept): Watch and listen to James O. Horton speak about “Slavery in the Founding Era” Reading: The Three-Fifths ...
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