AFRC670 - TOPICS:TRANSGREGIONA HIS: COMPARATIVE SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION

Reading and discussion course on selected topics in Transregional History See the Africana Studies Department's website at https://africana.sas.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.


Comparative Slavery and Emancipation: What do historians gain by approaching the past with an awareness of the body as a material and historically contingent entity? In this course we consider several different ways of imagining historical bodies and the body in history. Our readings will explore how events and new social, racial, economic and political formations influence how contemporaries imagined and described bodies and their capacities. We will also explore whether the body itself might be a dynamic source of historical change. Among the topics we will discuss are: medical theories about bodies, epidemics and their impact; sensory capacities; capacities for physical labor; cultures of violence; reproductive capacities and politics; coerced migration; fashion, beauty, and grace; and the state's interest in mobilizing bodies to serve imperial, economic, and military agendas. This course complements but does not duplicate "Race and Gender in Comparative Perspective" offered in Spring 2012. It is an intensive readings course with written assignments: short papers throughout the semester and a synthetic final paper.