For precise schedule of offerings see department catalog during pre-enrollment week each semester.

This seminar offers an introduction to Atlantic History, c. 1400-1888, which is defined as both a field of history and a methodological approach. As a field of history, it concerns the four continents surrounding the Atlantic Ocean and their increasing interconnectedness beginning in the fifteenth century. As a methodology, it is an approach to the past of this region that seeks to de-emphasize traditional colony-, empire-, or nation-centered narratives and instead trace connections and exchanges between regions and center Native Peoples, Africans, and peoples of African descent. This year the course will be co-taught by an Africanist and a Latin Americanist/Caribbeanist, and our emphasis will be on the relationship of Africa and Africanist historiography to literature in the field. What might a better engagement with African history and historiography do for our understanding of Atlantic history? How do methodologies in Native American and African and Afro-American histories compare and contrast? The course will provide students with a survey of major themes and methodological approaches and will also interrogate the relationship between Atlantic history and global history. We will read a mix of canonical works and some of the most recent scholarship in this rapidly evolving field. Readings will be available digitally, and the final assignment is a book proposal and introduction for an edited volume in the field on a topic of the student’s choosing.

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