Goucher College 2012-2013 Undergraduate Catalogue 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
Goucher College 2012-2013 Undergraduate Catalogue PLEASE NOTE: This is an archived catalog. Programs are subject to change each academic year.

AFR 205 - Bad Spirits: The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade in History and Memory (NEW COURSE) (3 Cr.)

(HIS 205)
Between 1500 and 1866, an estimated 12.5 million Africans were forcibly removed from their families and loved ones and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to labor as slaves in the Americas. The vast scope of the slave trade—in terms of its human toll as well as its reach across the continents—left an indelible stamp on societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

This course examines the Atlantic slave trade and its lasting imprint on the modern psyche through three different lenses: through the experiences of the slaves, slave traders, and other Atlantic contemporaries who lived through its growth and abolition; through the interpretations of historians who have studied the trade; and through the creative work of Atlantic “ancestors”—such as spiritual diviners, filmmakers, and writers—who have wrestled with its legacies and meanings in more recent history. By looking at the slave trade through these different perspectives, this course not only aims to introduce upper-level undergraduates to some of the core themes in the history of the slave trade, but also to provide students with insight into the trades’ cultural impacts past and present.

  Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or permission of instructor. Recommended:  ,   ,  , or  . Dator