possessions and dispossession
Course Description
In this course, we’ll ask how colonial models of property and personhood shaped both the eighteenth-century Atlantic world and the world we continue to inhabit today. Drawing on critical work in Indigenous Studies, Black Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies, we’ll examine the ways in which political and economic ideas associated with the Enlightenment helped to produce racialized and gendered subject positions that were coded as pathological and subordinate. Through readings of eighteenth-century fiction and poetry, political and philosophical treatises, and autobiographical narratives, we will explore how the notion of a “possessive individual” affected the lives of laborers, women, indigenous peoples, and enslaved Africans. In addition to our eighteenth-century texts, we’ll turn to a number of more recent “texts” (including podcasts and contemporary new media) as a way of grappling with the ongoing reality of settler colonial histories.
Throughout the class, we will look to find ways of moving beyond representations of violence and conquest. We will look for examples of personhood that emphasize porosity and interconnection, rather than domination and separateness—for examples of freedom that involve communal practices of use and dwelling, rather than individual ownership.
Required Texts
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Dionne Brand, At the Full Change of the Moon (Grove Press, 1999)
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, The Age of Phillis (Wesleyan, 2020)
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (House of Anansi Press, 2020)
Assignments: writing differently / together / for each other
It is customary in the university to approach the task of writing as a matter of individual effort and individual assessment at discrete points in a semester. In this course, we will do a lot of writing, but we will approach our writing differently. First, rather than emphasizing the distinctiveness of individual ideas (akin to privatized intellectual property), we will think of our writing as a collective effort to gather, communicate, and develop ideas. Our three assignments for the course reflect this aim, as you’ll see below. Second, our writing assignments will be ongoing throughout the semester, and there will be no final, culminating project. My goal in having more immediate and short-form assignments is to give us as much room as possible to encounter our texts as we read them on our own and to give us the best foundation for meaningful conversations when we meet together.
1. Discussion contributions
You’ll be responsible for a weekly discussion contribution this semester in weeks 2 through 14, except for the week of Spring Break and the weeks in which you serve as discussion synthesizer (see below). This means you’ll write a total of 10 posts. Posts should be made by Sunday nights so that we’ll have plenty of time to read, reflect, and prepare before class on Wednesday. Your posts should reflect your thoughts and questions about the texts and ideas for each week. You may use your posts to develop initial observations and close readings; to ask intellectually risky questions about where you ran aground in the reading; to wonder aloud if your classmates share similar concerns or to draw their collective attention to issues that may have escaped their notice; or to recapitulate an argument in order to frame or anticipate debates that the text might raise. These posts will often be jumping off points for class discussion, so you should always be prepared to re-ask your questions, to present and expand upon your ideas, and to let these ideas transform in conversations with your peers. Since there will be no long-form papers or other large assignments, I hope you will put that effort into your weekly discussion posts. There is no hard and fast length requirement, but 250-300 words is a good general benchmark.
2. Discussion synthesis and reflection
Once during the semester you’ll serve as discussion synthesizer, which will involve two related but separate tasks:
The discussion synthesizer(s) [there may be two in some weeks, depending on our size] will read all of the posts made on our discussion board in advance of class. (Discussion synthesizers do not need to post separately in advance of class.) They will then be responsible for opening our discussion by presenting (in 5-10 minutes) some of the key threads from the discussion board. Synthesizers might draw connections between various posts, raise tensions or note disagreements, ask or respond to questions, or suggest continuities or discrepancies in other parts of the text. When relevant, synthesizers may also introduce other materials (readings, contemporary media, news stories, etc.). Synthesizers are not required to make mention of every post in their presentations, but they should be familiar with the week’s discussion board, and they should find a compelling way to launch our discussion by bringing together others’ ideas.
Synthesizers will then follow up with a short reflective essay (800-1000 words) that builds on the work they began in class. This essay will continue to rehearse and develop ideas and questions from that week’s readings, synthesized posts, and class discussion. The essay will serve as a record of our collective encounter in class that week, and could also include personal reflections and/or reflections for further thought. The synthesizer will turn in a draft of their essay by the Sunday after class (e.g., the draft for our Jan. 27 class would be due on Jan. 31). On the week your draft is due, you also will be exempted from posting on the discussion board. I will read the draft, and send you back comments and revision suggestions. The final draft will be due the following Friday, and I will post all revised essays to our class site.
3. Glossary entries
Over the course of the class, we will build a glossary together of important terms and concepts that come up in our reading. Two times during the semester (once before Spring Break and once after), you will write a glossary entry of 250-500 words that defines and discusses a term related to the course themes.
Terms can be drawn directly from our readings, or you can offer terms that might encompass or define a larger concept or theme from the class, or you can offer a laterally-related but important term for us to consider. If you’d like to generate your term collaboratively, I’m happy to meet with you.
Glossary entries can range in style from the clear and simple to the meditative, but at a minimum should include the term you’ve chosen and a brief definition. Note the text or texts from our syllabus that your term is drawn from or inspired by. Terms can be duplicated – we will have different understandings – but the entries should be unique. Your entry can be supplemented by examples from our texts, both fiction and criticism.
Write your entry for a popular audience. Avoid academese or jargon, use plain language and simple sentence constructions, and aim for understanding. You don’t need to include a thesis statement. Focus on producing a thoughtful and engrossing account of your term.
You are welcome to offer addenda to your term as the semester progresses. I will maintain the comprehensive glossary on our course site and make a final version of the glossary and reflective essays available to you as a PDF at the end of the course.