610017 SE American Literature and Culture: Infidels like Me: The Barbary Captivity Narrative between North America and North Africa

winter semester 2022/2023 | Last update: 05.02.2024 Place course on memo list
610017
SE American Literature and Culture: Infidels like Me: The Barbary Captivity Narrative between North America and North Africa
SE 2
5
weekly
each semester
English

Survey of American Barbary captivity narratives in the context of its European tradition.

Students recognise connections between an individual's personal decision-making and specific local and global problems. They recognise how human actions influence the natural and human world. Students are able to identify and name key thematic concepts and research the relevant sources of information and literature.

An American ship has crossed the Atlantic and now nears the coasts of Spain. To everyone’s dismay, unfamiliar sails appear on the horizon: the passengers know they are about to fall into the hands of pirates, be stripped, robbed, and sold into slavery. This is the beginning of a myriad of stories told between the 17th and the 19th centuries by captives kidnapped by pirates on the unruly waters around North Africa and enslaved by the lords of what the West called “Barbary” – the Muslim states of Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. Some will convert to Islam and settle into new, prosperous lives, others will be ransomed, escape, or find a way to return to their home countries, where some will publish their stories. This seminar, an exclusive collaboration between American Studies departments at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the University of Innsbruck, will center on this fascinating and yet dramatically under-researched genre of American literature, the Barbary captivity narrative. We will read early American and 19th-century literary representations of American captives in North Africa against the backdrop of the US’ recent independence, its first engagement with Islam, its musings on the morality and immorality of slavery, and the long “Barbary Wars” that will deplete its financial resources but mark its debut on the global arena. Like the Orient, the Barbary Coast is a real place as well as a screen on which the US and Europe projected fantasies of violence and seduction.

We will read American Barbary captivity narratives in the context of European texts.

Presentations, discussions
In cooperation
(Aurora) with the Robert Spindler (University of Innsbruck) and Elena Furlanetto (American Studies Department; University of Duisburg Essen)

Course requirements include: active class participation, a presentation with discussion leading, and a 17 to 18-page research paper.

The course will in part rely on the anthology: Mario Klarer, Barbary Captives: An Anthology of Early Modern Slave Memoirs by Europeans in North Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.

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The seminar "SE American Literature and Culture" can be attended as the "SE American Literature and Culture II". If you wish to obtain credits for both seminars, the seminars' contents must differ substantially.

Max. number of participants: 20

The course is also an Aurora Alliance (AURORA – Universität Innsbruck (uibk.ac.at) event.

Students of all Aurora universities (incl. Master/Bachelor students of the University of Innsbruck) are invited to apply for participation in this course from 16. August till 04 September 22 or until the maximum number of participants has been reached on a “first come, first served” basis at the following link: Universität Innsbruck – Universität Innsbruck (uibk.ac.at)

Information: The non-subject related learning outcomes have been formulated in alignment with the Aurora Competence Framework (LOUIS) which is based on the VALUE rubrics developed by the AAC&U.

10.10.2022
Group 0
Date Time Location
Mon 2022-10-10
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-10-17
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-10-24
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-10-31
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-11-07
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-11-14
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-11-21
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-11-28
12.00 - 13.30 online (Amerikastudien) online (Amerikastudien)
Mon 2022-12-05
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2022-12-12
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2023-01-09
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2023-01-16
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2023-01-23
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free
Mon 2023-01-30
12.00 - 13.30 UNO Saal UNO Saal Barrier-free