ENGL 52.20 Reading Between the Color Lines in 19th-Century American Literature

How are persons racialized as both Black and White portrayed in nineteenth-century American literature? What cultural or political meanings do interracial experiences convey? And what hopes and fears are aroused by stories of people whose lives straddle a color line defined by slavery, racial capitalism, anti-blackness, border war, indigenous dispossession and genocide? Informed by Black Studies approaches to literary representations, this course examines life writing, short stories, poems, and novels about mixed-race, interracial, and biracial subjects of the nineteenth century, a period of tumultuous change for those misnamed by the racializing logics of the time as mulatto/mulatta, metis, mestiza/mestizo, quadroon, or octoroon. Assignments and readings in the course are designed to inspire students to question how these identities were central in shaping American racial imaginaries, cultural ideologies, material realities, and political possibilities.

Cross Listed Courses

AAAS 82.11

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:LIT; WCult:CI

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Department-Specific Course Categories

Course Group II