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Oct 10, 2025
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ENG 256 - African American Literature I: Declarations of Independence and the Narratives of Slavery
Description
This course covers African American narratives of slavery from the colonial period through the early 19th Century. The Declaration of Independence, the founding narrative of American selfhood and agency, provides the discursive background of the course. The Declaration did not mention Slavery, thereby erasing Slaves’ experiences in the American narrative about peoplehood. We will engage the logic, rhetoric and contradictions of the document by pluralizing “declaration” to broaden and then examine how Slaves’ oral narratives (the Spirituals, etc.) and texts (by Phyllis Wheatley, Oladuah Equaino, etc.) were figurative and literal declarations of independence that simultaneously question the Declaration’s principles and ideology and affirm its transcendent meanings in the writers’ discourses on Slavery, Black humanity and selfhood, race, the American Dream, etc. Meets Pre-1800 requirement in the English major. Same as AFS/AMS/WGS 256 .
Credits: 1
Course Attribute(s):
HUMA Gen Ed: Humanities Requirement
Major:Women’s,Gender,Sexuality
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