The following readings are either links to websites that make the works publically available or downloadable pdf versions of the texts:
Week 1: A Tempest of Identities
- From Skakespeare, Race and Colonialism by Ania Loomba (downloadable pdf)
- A True and Exact History of the Islands of Barbadoes by Richard Ligon (downloadable pdf)
- Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave by Aphra Behn (online text)
- A Voyage to Virginia in 1609 by William Strachey
Week 2: Black Mariner Narratives
- A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briiton Hammon, A Negro Man by Briton Hammon (downloadable pdf taken from UVA’s e-texts collection)
- The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself by Olaudah Equiano (downloadable pdf taken from UNC’s online collection of e-texts)
- A Narrative of the Lord’s Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, A Black by John Marrant (online text)
- A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture Smith, A Native of Africa: But resident above fifty years in the United State of America. Related by Himself. by Venture Smith (online text)
- “Chapter 1: The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity” from The Black Atlantic by Paul Gilroy
Week 3: Colonialism in the Heart of Africa
Week 4: Engendering the Post-Colonial
- “On National Culture” from Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
- Excerpts from The Madwoman in the Attic by Gilbert and Gubar
Week 5: Contemporary Fragmentation