Undergraduate Course: The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the U.S. South, 1789-1860 (HIST10333)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | History |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | Between 1789 and 1860 slavery in the U.S. South matured, taking to new extremes the economic exploitation and social oppression of African Americans. As southern slaveholders migrated to new lands in the Southwest, carrying their slaves with them, they consolidated their position in international cotton markets and developed newly sophisticated justifications for permanent racial slavery. Though we will pay some attention to the slaveholders&© perspective, we will be especially interested in the lives, relationships, and identities that slaves were able to carve out for themselves. The central problem will be how slaves coped with slavery$ûhow they formed families and communities and how they expressed themselves culturally within an institution intended to exert total control over their lives. The course will encourage reflection on the methodological problems of studying slavery and the contentious debates this subject has generated among historians. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass or passes in 40 credits of first level historical courses or equivalent and a pass or passes in 40 credits of second level historical courses or equivalent.
Before enrolling students on this course, Directors are asked to contact the History Honours Admission Secretary to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 503783). |
| Additional Costs | 0 |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should usually have at least 3 History courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this) for entry to this course. We will only consider University/College level courses. |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2011/12 Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1)
|
WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: 26 |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Lecture | Room 2.05, Appleton Tower, | 18-29 | | 11:10 - 13:00 | | | |
| First Class |
Week 18, Tuesday, 11:10 - 13:00, Zone: Central. Room 2.05, Appleton Tower, |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students should have demonstrated in presentations, seminar discussions, essays and exams:
&· knowledge of the historical nature of slavery in the U.S. South between 1789 and 1860.
&· awareness of the major historiographical debates involving the interpretation of slavery in the U.S. South.
&· understanding of the methodological problems facing historians of slavery.
&· the ability to evaluate critically primary sources, secondary sources and the seminar contributions of their colleagues.
&· the ability to use these critical skills to advance clear, well-reasoned and independent arguments in both written and oral forms.
|
Assessment Information
Assessment will be based on one final exam (40%), one essay (40%), one presentation (15%), and oral participation in seminar discussions (5%). Marks for the presentations and oral participation will be based partly on peer assessment.
Visiting Student Variant Assessment:
When this course is taught in Semester 1, the Visiting Student assessment will be:
One 'take home' exam (40%);
One essay (40%);
One presentation (15%);
Oral participation in seminar discussions (5%). Marks for the presentations and oral participation will be based partly on peer assessment.
If taught in Semester 2, the assessment is as detailed for full year students. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Seminar topics:
&· Historiography and Methodology
&· Slave Life and Labour
&· Cotton, Expansion, and the $ùSecond Middle Passage&©
&· The Slaveholders&© Regime: Economy, Society, and Ideology
&· Family and Community
&· Culture and Religion
&· Gender
&· Resistance and Rebellion
&· U.S. Slavery in Comparative Perspective
|
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
INDICATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
(i) General Works
Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Cambridge, Mass., 2003)
John B. Boles, Black Southerners, 1619-1869 (Lexington, 1983)
Philip D. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1998)
David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, 1966)
Carl Degler, Neither Black Nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (London, 1971)
Stanley Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago, 1959)
Stanley Engerman et.al. ed., Slavery (Oxford, 2001)
Paul Finkelman, Slavery and the Law (Madison, 1997)
Robert Fogel, Without Consent or Contract (New York, 1989)
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of American Negroes (2nd ed., New York, 1964)
Ariela J. Gross, Double Character: Slavery and the Master in the Antebellum Courtroom (Princeton, 2000)
Nathan I. Huggins, Black Odyssey: The Afro-American Ordeal in Slavery (New York, 1977)
Winthrop Jordan ed., Slavery and the American South (Jackson, 2003)
Herbert S. Klein, Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study of Virginia and Cuba (Chicago, 1967)
Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877 (New York, 1994)
_____, &«Reevaluating the Antebellum Slave Community: A Comparative Perspective,&ª Journal of American History (1983)
_____, Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom (Cambridge, Mass., 1987)
Thomas D. Morris, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 (Chapel Hill, 1966)
Leslie Howard Owens, This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the Old South (New York, 1976)
Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery (Baton Rouge, 1918)
Mark M. Smith ed., Debating Slavery: Economy and Society in the Antebellum American South (Cambridge, 1998)
Theresa A. Singleton, The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life (London, 1985)
Kenneth Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South (New York, 1956)
Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (New York, 1947)
Alan Watson, Slave Law in the Americas (Athens, 1989)
Donald R. Wright, African Americans in the Early Republic, 1789-1831 (Arlington Heights, 1993)
(ii) Sample reading list for an individual session: Gender
Daina R. Berry, $ùSwing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe&©: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia (Urbana, 2007)
Gwyn Campbell, et al., eds., Women and Slavery (Athens, 2007)
Jennifer Fleischner, Mastering Slavery: Memory, Family and Identity in Women's Slave Narratives (New York, 1996)
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill, 1988)
David B. Gaspar & Darlene Hine, More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington, 1996)
Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present (New York, 1985) chapter 1
Carol Lasser, &«Slavery, Gender, and the Meanings of Freedom,&ª Gender and History 13 (2001)
Jennifer Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia, 2004)
Patricia Morton ed., Discovering the Women in Slavery (Athens, 1996)
Nell Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol (New York, 1996)
Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South (Cambridge, Mass., 2006)
Richard Steckel, &«Slavery, Marriage and the Family,&ª Journal of Family History (1980)
Dorothy Sterling ed., We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1997)
Marli Weiner, Mistresses and Slaves: Plantation Women in South Carolina, 1830-1880 (Urbana, 1998)
Deborah G. White, Ar&©n&©t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York, 1985)
Deborah G. White, &«Female Slaves: Sex roles and status in the Antebellum plantation,&ª Journal of Family History (1983)
|
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Paul Quigley
Tel: (0131 6)50 9963
Email: paul.quigley@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Marie-Therese Rafferty
Tel: (0131 6)50 3780
Email: M.T.Rafferty@ed.ac.uk |
|
© Copyright 2011 The University of Edinburgh - 16 January 2012 6:13 am
|
University Homepage