The Atlantic Ocean was an important space
in the eighteenth century. The watery main dividing Europe and Africa from the Americas
enabled the transportation of people and commodities, of ideas and cultures.
Articulated around a series of interrelated dichotomies – absolute freedom and
total enslavement, naïve superstition and scientific rationality, unimaginable
riches and abject poverty – the British imperial project was worked out in this
space. London and sea ports, coastal colonies and unknown interiors, desert
islands and ships; slavers and slaves, pirates and planters, wives and
adventuresses: such will be the locations and people that we will read about
during this seminar, as we try to understand how the Atlantic Ocean was key in
helping the British to imagine themselves at the dawn of the industrial era.
Credit requirements are regular attendance,
active participation, class presentations, and an end of term paper of 3000
words. On successful completion of the course,
students will have gained knowledge of the texts and contexts of the
eighteenth-century Atlantic space. They will have learned how to read and write about
texts from different genres, as they move towards writing their research
papers. They will also have refined their written and oral skills, and learned
to profitably interact with their peers during class discussions.