Cassander, Smith L. "Teaching against assumptions about the Black experience in America." Throughlines www.throughlines.org/suite-content/teaching-against-assumptions-about-the-black-experience-in-america. [Date accessed].
Teaching against assumptions about the Black experience in America
Racial rhetorics in 18th-century literature still resonate in contemporary media and the classroom
Cassander L. Smith teaches rhetorics of race across a vast expanse of time, outside the tunnel-vision of the contemporary politics of race, asking students, what might the writings of Briton Hammon and Phillis Wheatley, and their contemporaries, tell us about the developmental eras of racial thought that have defined the United States’ social politics? What might they tell us about the experiences of Black Americans today?
Further learning
Black protest tradition in early African American literature
Respectability politics has long circumscribed the Black American experience and the literature produced by Black communities. This course examines some of the earliest examples of that literature to understand where, how, and why protest emerged in African American literature as a strategy to combat American racism and state-sanctioned violence.
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Recommended
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Cultures and contexts in the Black Atlantic
Moving from the 15th century to the present, this course brings together history, literature, and criticism to trace the histories of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Through foundational texts and critical questions, students will explore how the legacies of the Black Atlantic continue to influence ideas of race, freedom, memory, and justice.
Slavery history, metaphors, and meaning
The history of slavery shaped the economic, political, and cultural foundations of the modern world. This syllabus explores how historians study slavery through archives, material culture, and critical theory, while examining the enduring legacies of enslavement in questions of race, capitalism, memory, and justice.
