F20 Black Atlantic: Resources, Pedagogy, and Scholarship on the 18th Century Black AtlanticMain MenuAuthor IndexFAQWeek 01: August 28: PedagogiesWeek 02: Friday, September 4: Thinking about Projects and Digital MethodsWeek 03: Friday, September 11: Black Atlantic Classics Week 04: Reccomended: Thursday September 17: 4pm: Indigenous Studies and British LiteraturesThe Center for Literary + Comparative Studies @UMDWeek 04: Required: Friday, September 18: Reading: Indigenous Studies in the Eighteenth CenturyWeek 04: Required: Friday, September 18: Book LaunchRemaking the Republic: Black Politics and the Creation of American CitizenshipWeek 05: Friday, September 25: Digital Humanities, Caribbean Stuides, and FashionGuest: Siobhan MeiWeek 06: Friday, October 2: OBIWeek 07: October 9: Black LondonSancho's Social NetworksWeek 08: Friday, October 16:Muslim Slave Narratives, Hans Sloane, the British Museum, Colonialism as CurationWeek 09: Friday, October 23: Reflection and Tools DayWeek 10: Friday, October 30: Myths of a White Atlantic (and Project Proposal)Week 11: Friday, November 6: Black New EnglandWeek 12: Friday, November 13: Woman of Colour and Mary PrinceWeek 13: Friday, November 20: Peer Review Workshop and Draft with Action PlanKierra M. Porter6b7d2e75a0006cdf2df0ac2471be73ef9c88c9e3Brandice Walker579eedcc76564f61b1ba7f36082d05bdf4fc3435Alexis Harper52f175308474d58b269191120b6cda0582dcde71Catherine C. Saunders80964fcb3df3a95f164eca6637e796a22deb5f63Joseph Heidenescher83b7b4309ef73ce872fc35c61eb8ed716cce705fJoshua Lawson8aecdcf9d2db74d75fb55413d44f3c2dfc3828bdKymberli M Corprue7f6419242e66e656367985fbc1cfa10a933ce71dJimisha Relerford1903b0530d962a83c3a72bad80c867df4f5c027fEmily MN Kugler98290aa17be4166538e04751b7eb57a9fe5c26a2Reed Caswell Aikendbd321f67398d85b0079cc751762466dfe764f88Brenton Brock619582e4449ba6f0c631f2ebb7d7313c0890fa00
Black Atlantic Ur-Texts
12020-09-11T08:38:35-07:00Joseph Heidenescher83b7b4309ef73ce872fc35c61eb8ed716cce705f377913plain2020-09-25T17:12:55-07:00Emily MN Kugler98290aa17be4166538e04751b7eb57a9fe5c26a2In my reading through Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic, C.L.R. James’s Black Jacobins, and Eric Williams’s Capitalism & Slavery, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade are imbedded in almost every facet of western economics, politics, and national identity. As Williams makes very clear, enslaved African labor transformed the young United States into an economic, capitalist hegemon joining the ranks of imperial superpowers like Spain, Portugal, Holland, Britain, and France. One central thesis Williams makes, one that is similar to James, is that enslaved African labor was not a result of European racism; instead, Williams asserts that slavery was a result of a need for cheap, robust labor. Colonial labor, as Williams notes, came from across the imperial reach of European empires—political enemies, criminals, religious dissidents, vagrants, and colonized subjects (i.e. Irish, Indian, Chinese peoples) were all transported to the New World to fulfill a need for cheap labor. However, as the colonies continued to expand westward, and plantations continued to grow, monopolize, and accumulate capital, empires like Britain struggled provide enough free labor to work on giant plantations and push westward in search for arable land—thus providing economic conditions that made enslaved African labor cheaper in the long run than free labor. In this sense, slavery comes about as a result of capitalistic economic conditions, and in my opinion, coupled with damaging notions of human difference that begin to take on increasing rigid biological, essentialist frames of human identity. Primarily, Williams and James highlight the way in which extractive agricultural crops of sugar, tobacco, and cotton transformed the modern world through a capitalist/bourgeoisie class of Europeans that not only exploited free and slave labor for their gain, but also began to influence colonial government structures that modeled political organization around the ideology of the plantation and Enlightenment liberalism. In this case, it becomes increasingly clear that these texts have laid the foundation for current theories to flourish, namely I am thinking about these texts' influence on ideas of Afro-pessimism, anti-black racism, and even the 1619 project. The debate about the influence of the Atlantic slave trade on American/New World political, societal, cultural structure rage on. Yet, Williams, James, and Gilroy refuse to let us forget the myriad ways in which notions of cultural insiderism, homogenous national identity, and even notions of humanity are fundamentally tied and imbricated with the history of the genocide of indigenous peoples of North and South America and the genocide and enslavement of Africans.
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12020-09-25T17:06:58-07:00Joseph Heidenescher83b7b4309ef73ce872fc35c61eb8ed716cce705fHistorical Fiction and the Black Atlantic ArchiveEmily MN Kugler2Week 5 Responseplain2020-09-25T17:10:35-07:00Emily MN Kugler98290aa17be4166538e04751b7eb57a9fe5c26a2
12020-09-25T17:06:58-07:00Joseph Heidenescher83b7b4309ef73ce872fc35c61eb8ed716cce705fHistorical Fiction and the Black Atlantic Archive2Week 5 Responseplain2020-09-25T17:10:35-07:00Emily MN Kugler98290aa17be4166538e04751b7eb57a9fe5c26a2