ENGL 060. Early Black Media Cultures

(Cross-listed as BLST 060)
This course studies the wide variety of Black media cultures in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic world, including newspapers, broadside poetry, sheet music, friendship albums, political pamphlets, and novels. We will attend closely to the materiality of these texts, reading not only for the work of authors but also that of illustrators, editors, typesetters, and readers. How did these cultural workers shape racial identities, aesthetic forms, and political possibilities through media technologies? Our investigations will be informed by readings in recent theory and criticism on Black Studies, media culture, and literary history. In their final projects, students will have the chance to pursue their own original research using the rich resources of Philadelphia-area libraries.
18th/19th c.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Eligible for BLST.
Spring 2025. Cohen.
Catalog chapter: English Literature
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature

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