LS 649 - Philosophical Anthropology in Slave Narratives

(3.00 cr.)

The most frequently used argument against slavery is that slaves are human beings. This is a problem of philosophical anthropology. Students read American slave narratives with the purpose of uncovering the picture of humanity which emerges from those sources. The course leads students to investigate the philosophical foundations of the phenomenon of slavery that brought a very specific kind of diversity of human perspectives into the United States. Its purpose is to utilize the literary productions of African Americans for philosophical anthropology.