Lit Core: From Slavery to Mass Incarceration

This section of Literature Core will focus on narratives that speak to questions of slavery, incarceration, and freedom--both literal and metaphorical. The current pandemic along with the mass demonstrations against systemic racial injustices will provide a particular backdrop and context from which to consider these questions and issues. The course will start with historical and political writings about slavery from the 1800s and the social contexts in which these writings were produced and consumed. We will them move on to historical and contemporary fiction and film that informs and challenges our historical understanding of slavery and the relationship between slavery and our current system of incarceration. Course texts may include Homegoing (Yaa Gaysi), The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, David Walker's Appeal, Beloved (Toni Morrison), Kindred (Octavia Butler), The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead), and Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson).