Black Death

he term ‘black death’ circulates in scholarship and public discourses often without a clear definition or attribution to a specific thinker. It can do this because the term is commonsensical—naming the unfortunate relationship between Black people and death. This seminar surveys death as an object of inquiry, metaphor, political occasion, and inspiration for aesthetic creation. Reading texts and engaging other materials across disciplines, genres, and media while focusing on Anthropology and African American Studies, the course recognizes that the threads of race and death are inherently global and connected to European colonial imperial expansion, racism, capitalism, and modernity. Throughout the course we ask: What is the relationship between Black people or “blackness” and death? Is “black death” unique? How do we take seriously ubiquitous legacies of antiblack violence while also accounting for socio-historical specificity? What are the attendant practices, creations, and modes of thinking and being responsive to black death? At the end of the course, students will have honed skills in close reading, critical thinking, and thoughtful discussion through the study of race and death. This is an advanced level course; students should have taken at least one course introductory critical race theories course (or similar) prior to enrolling.