Jones, Jeannette

This course surveys the history of the transatlantic slave trade and the movements to abolish the slave trade and slavery in the Americas. Covering the period from 1441 to 1888, the course will provide a historical overview of European empires that colonized the Americas and, in the process, enslaved Indigenous peoples, Africans who European traders transported across the Atlantic Ocean, and people of African descent born into slavery in the Americas. Students will consider slavery as a transimperial, international network that involved African, European, and settler colonial merchants. Analyzing secondary and primary sources, students will explore the social, cultural, economic, and political history of “American” slavery and abolition. Special focus will be placed on the rise of abolition and antislavery movements in the United States and Great Britain, and the transnational campaign to suppress the slave trade.
Requirements for students in the MEAS (MA European American Studies) program: accumulative presentation; research paper proposal (5pp.); optional: full research paper (module paper; pls. see module structures https://www.uni-regensburg.de/assets/language-literature-culture/american-studies/master/eas_master_ws1819.pdf )
For students in the teachers’ training program, BA American Studies program, further MA programs: Course requirement: accumulative presentation; credit requirement: advanced academic writings in English (total of app. 15 pages).

This course serves as an intensive reading course in the academic field of Black Studies, drawing from both “traditional” and “newer” fields of study such as: history, political science, anthropology, literature, sociology, art history, music, religious studies, communications/media studies, sexuality studies, gender studies, queer studies, women’s studies, and hip-hop studies. Although these fields fall within the canonical disciplines of the arts, humanities, and social sciences, Black studies also encompasses inquiries in the natural and physical sciences. However, this course will focus on the arts, humanities, and social sciences as modes of inquiry into black experiences in the post US Civil Rights Era. While the major focus is on black experiences in the United States, the course will also explore other Black Diaspora experiences and “Transnational Blackness.” Of particular concern for this course are the critical conversations taking place in the field as scholars debate the current state and future of “Black Studies.”