Slavery and Conspiracy

This is a multidisciplinary seminar on the law and literature of slave conspiracy. Students will be reading novels and stories by authors such as Martin Delany and Herman Melville alongside contemporary newspapers, confessions, warrants, witness depositions, and trial transcripts. The course will also be reading history and theory by Peter Brooks, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Jill Lepore, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, and Gordon Wood. Students will choose between writing a research paper and working on a collaborative digital project related to one of the conspiracies covered in the course. Supported by a Digital Humanities course component grant.