The Birth of a Nation (2016) Syllabus
Building on the calls to action following Ferguson, the Charleston Massacre and the death of Sandra Bland, scholars responded with the creation of crowd-sourced syllabi and contextual introductory essays in order to bring both rigor and a critical perspective on contemporary events and even Beyoncé’s visual album. Moreover, each syllabus is accessible to a wider public digitally, and in some instances, print form.
The Birth of a Nation Syllabus has been created by graduate students in AAST 502 002/AMS 530-003: Power and Resistance taught at the University of Alabama in Fall of 2016 by Dr. Hilary N. Green.
The purpose is to help contextualize the Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation (2016) film. Released in October 2016, this film explored Nat Turner and his uprising with freed and enslaved African Americans against the institution of slavery in Southampton County, Virginia.
Each student selected a theme to focus on for their bibliography of primary sources, scholarly monographs and articles, films, op-eds, and blogs for understanding the film as a Hollywood historical text of understanding power and resistance in antebellum slavery, the reception of the film, and the controversy surrounding the filmmaker. After spending weeks researching appropriate materials, they condensed their work into a brief introductory paragraph to frame their selected theme. In addition, they crafted a longer review essay of the sources compiled for their theme (standard graded assignment for a graduate seminar but not included here).
This syllabus is neither a comprehensive nor a finished product. It is a digital project produced during a single semester by a small group of students. While we have spent a semester discussing the resistance of enslaved men, women, and children, we have created is a working project that analyzes and supplements the film Birth of a Nation and adds to a longstanding conversation regarding the modes of power and resistance within the institution of slavery in pre-1865 United States.
The Birth of a Nation Syllabus has been created by graduate students in AAST 502 002/AMS 530-003: Power and Resistance taught at the University of Alabama in Fall of 2016 by Dr. Hilary N. Green.
The purpose is to help contextualize the Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation (2016) film. Released in October 2016, this film explored Nat Turner and his uprising with freed and enslaved African Americans against the institution of slavery in Southampton County, Virginia.
Each student selected a theme to focus on for their bibliography of primary sources, scholarly monographs and articles, films, op-eds, and blogs for understanding the film as a Hollywood historical text of understanding power and resistance in antebellum slavery, the reception of the film, and the controversy surrounding the filmmaker. After spending weeks researching appropriate materials, they condensed their work into a brief introductory paragraph to frame their selected theme. In addition, they crafted a longer review essay of the sources compiled for their theme (standard graded assignment for a graduate seminar but not included here).
This syllabus is neither a comprehensive nor a finished product. It is a digital project produced during a single semester by a small group of students. While we have spent a semester discussing the resistance of enslaved men, women, and children, we have created is a working project that analyzes and supplements the film Birth of a Nation and adds to a longstanding conversation regarding the modes of power and resistance within the institution of slavery in pre-1865 United States.
Course Readings
Resistance: The Cultural and Everyday Resistors
Resistance: The Runaways
Resistance: The Rebels
Resistance: The Maroons
Resistance: The Slaves’ Revolutionary Freedom Struggle
- Walter C. Rucker, The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2008).
- Walter Johnson, Soul By Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).
- Terri Snyder, The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
Resistance: The Runaways
- Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave. Related by Herself. With a Supplement by the Editor. To Which Is Added, the Narrative of Asa-Asa, a Captured African (London: Published by F. Westley and A. H. Davis, 1831).
- Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom. Part I. Life as a Slave. Part II. Life as a Freeman (New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855).
- Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself. Boston: Published for the Author, 1861, c1860.
Resistance: The Rebels
- Sibylle Fischer, Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).
- Kyle Baker, Nat Turner (New York: Abrams, 2008).
- The Confessions of Nat Turner
Resistance: The Maroons
- Sylviane Diouf, Slavery Exiles: The Story of American Maroons (New York: New York University Press, 2014).
- Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger (New York: W. W. Norton and Co, 1993).
Resistance: The Slaves’ Revolutionary Freedom Struggle
- David S. Cecelski, Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves’ Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).
- Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
Individual Projects
Atkinson's Reflections on the Slave Community
Bennett's Reflections on Slavery and Capitalism
Bennett's Reflections on Religion in Nat Turner's Virginia
Borrero's Reflections on Object to Subject
Fassig-Fletcher's Reflections on Nat Turner as a Cultural Symbol
Surrell's Reflections on Skilled Labor and Slave Rebellion
Bennett's Reflections on Slavery and Capitalism
Bennett's Reflections on Religion in Nat Turner's Virginia
Borrero's Reflections on Object to Subject
Fassig-Fletcher's Reflections on Nat Turner as a Cultural Symbol
Surrell's Reflections on Skilled Labor and Slave Rebellion
