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The Black Atlantic: Religion, slavery, and the formation of a new world

As the United States celebrates its Semiquincentennial, this course uses the categories of race and religion to examine the nation’s emergence. It places Black people and their religious practices at the center of the story of the making of the United States and the Americas. The “Black Atlantic,” a concept introduced by the scholar Paul Gilroy, proposes that Blacks were not passive actors; indeed, enslaved and free Africans in the Americas helped shape the New World, and the U.S. The course will look at the religious landscape in Africa at the dawn of trans-Atlantic slavery and examine the new religious forms and meanings Black people created in America, drawing on both European and African-derived traditions, including Christianity and Islam. The course will include optional short readings and in-class audio-visual clips.

Instructor: Prof. Marlon Millner