This module examines literary and visual representations of British Caribbean slavery between the 1790s and the 1860s and in our own postcolonial moment and explores the relationships between these two bodies of historically distinct but thematically interconnected materials.

demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the ways in which the institution of British Caribbean slavery was represented (and contested) during its own time and how writers of the postcolonial era have variously looked back to, reimagined and expanded the historical materials on which they draw.

The module will be delivered by a combination of one 1-hr lecture and one 2-hr seminar per week for one semester. The lectures will give an overview of the materials and ways of approaching them and be supported by handouts, usually available to students on Learning Central at least 24 hours beforehand. Seminars will provide students with a variety of learning opportunities including close textual analysis, small group discussion and informal presentation.

WHAT IS EXPECTED OF ME?

Students are expected to attend and participate in the lectures and seminars for all modules on which they are enrolled. Students with good cause to be absent should inform their module leaders, who will provide the necessary support. Students with extenuating circumstances should submit the Extenuating Circumstances Form in accordance with the School’s procedures.

The total number of hours which students are expected to devote to each 20-credit module is 200. Of these, 30 hours will be contact hours with staff (lectures and seminars); the remaining 170 hours should be spent on self-directed learning for that module (reading, preparation for seminars, research, reflection, formative writing, assessed work, exam revision).  There are also additional seminars and workshops that students are able to attend.

The particular skills of this module entail understanding the changing nature of literary and visual representations of British Caribbean slavery from the 1790s to the present day. Emphasis is placed on close reading informed by historical awareness and recent critical debates in the field. Employability skills include the ability to synthesise information; operating in group-based discussion involving negotiating ideas; and producing clear, cogent and informed arguments in a professional manner.

Essay (3200 words) = 100%
Approx date of assessment in January

The main readings for this module are books and journal articles. Students should contact the module leader as early as possible if they will require readings in an alternative format.

Indicative Syllabus

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, ed. Margaret Smith (Oxford University Press, 1998)

David Dabydeen, ‘Turner’ in New and Selected Poems (Cape, 1994)

George Eliot, ‘Brother Jacob’ in ‘The Lifted Veil’ and ‘Brother Jacob’, ed. Helen

            Small (Oxford University Press, 1999)

Jackie Kay, The Lamplighter (Bloodaxe, 2008)

Matthew Lewis, Journal of a West India Proprietor, ed. Judith Terry (Oxford University

Press, 1999)

Grace Nichols, I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983; Karnak House, 1990)

Marlene NourbeSe Philip, Zong! (Wesleyan University Press, 2008)

Dorothea Smartt, ‘Samboo’s Grave—Bilal’s Grave’ in Ship Shape (Peepal Tree, 2008)

Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger (Penguin, 1992)

Indicative topics:

• The Middle Passage
• Pro-slavery Discourse
• Abolitionist Discourse and the Question of Sugar
• Slavery and the Gothic
• Creole Identities and Anxieties
• Plantation Culture, Sexual Violence and Miscegenation
• Strategies of Resistance
• Orality and Literacy
• Intertextualities
• Questions of Representation: Making and Breaking the Silence

Ian Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of

History (Duke University Press, 2005)

Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650 to 1838 (Heinemann, 1990)

Simon Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton, 2011)

Carl Plasa, Slaves to Sweetness: British and Caribbean Literatures of Sugar (Liverpool

University Press, 2009)

Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (John Murray, 2007)

James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery (HarperCollins, 1992)

Marcus Wood, Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and

America, 1780-1865 (Manchester University Press, 2000)

(* = particularly recommended)

Ian Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005)*

Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650 to 1838 (Heinemann, 1990)*

Simon Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton, 2011)

Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Verso, 1993)

Carl Plasa, Slaves to Sweetness: British and Caribbean Literatures of Sugar (Liverpool University Press, 2009)*

Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (London: John Murray, 2007)*

James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery (HarperCollins, 1992)*

Marcus Wood, Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and America, 1780-1865(Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press 2000)*

Detailed bibliographies for specific topics and authors will be issued in lectures.