American Slavery on Film

History 150/ African American Studies 138 (4 Units)
Satisfies General Education category VII (Multicultural Studies) requirement

Instructor: Adam Thomas (thomasaj@uci.edu)

Summer Session II

Tuesday, Thursday 9:00 - 11:50am, Social Science Plaza A 1170

UC Irvine

What do Americans imagine when we think about slavery? What do we choose to remember? What do we try to forget? Can we ever do justice to the sheer violence and exploitation of slavery on film? Should we even try? Why are films about slavery popular? What does their popularity tell us? Can film help us better understand slavery? What role do movies about slavery play in our culture? What do they tell us about how we view America today? These are some of the questions this course will attempt to answer.

This class examines how slavery is understood and remembered in American popular culture, particularly Hollywood films (one screened each week in class). It considers how different directors' and authors' perspectives (from white supremacists through black cultural nationalists), different times of production, and different historical events have influenced how filmmakers and their audiences have negotiated the meaning of slavery on personal, group, regional, and national levels. It focuses on a different specific theme of slavery each week - The Middle Passage or Resistance, for example. It considers what purpose films about slavery serve in society. The class provides a background of the history of slavery, and the history of how slavery has been remembered, from emancipation to the present. 

The class is relatively light on writing; the main focus and source of credit will be watching and discussing movies, with some supplementary reading. Students will have a choice of what kind of assignment they wish to write.

Please peruse the rest of the site for more information on the films we will watch, and questions we will discuss. Please contact me (Adam Thomas) if you have any questions: thomasaj@uci.edu