230585 “It’s Moe, the white slave”: Slave and Neo-Slave Narratives (S) (WiSe 2008/2009)

Slave narratives is a literary genre that emerged out of the ex-slaves' need to simultaneously testify against their oppressors and the ideological rationale deployed to justify their enslavement. As such, the narratives of ex-slaves are committed to human dignity and are embedded in the very idea of the United States of America upheld by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence. In the context of the Afro American literary tradition, they have also become foundational in the formation of fictional and nonfictional forms, among others, the contemporary narratives of slavery called neo-slave narratives. By reading relevant theoretical texts and analysing works, by e.g. Charles Johnson, Melville, Octavia Butler this reading intensive course will not only attempt to establish the conceptual limitations and advantages of the very names of the literary fields we will study: "slave and neo-slave narratives." It will equally engage with the dialogic relationship of two key African American literary genres in order to establish the trans-textuality that brings them together.