| Kommentar |
Since the colonization of the Americas, the Atlantic has been incessantly criss-crossed by cargoes of goods and people, traveled, networked, and shipwrecked. Countries facing the Atlantic became a stage for intercultural and interspecies encounters: between Indigenous people and colonizers, between subjects of rival empires, travelers and pirates, Muslims and Christians, the human and the more-than-human. This introduction to the field of Atlantic Studies will explore how Atlantic encounters have been narrated, visualized, and embodied from the colonial period to the present.
In our Odyssey-like journey, we will meet sea monsters, gods, sirens, pirates, shipwrecks, storytellers, and poets. We will engage with the writing of the “conquistadores,” explore the poetics of the “Black Atlantic,” get to know a range of materials from century-old manuscripts to award-winning films and contemporary art. The decision to include emotionally challenging material about death and suicide, trauma, and enslavement was not taken lightly. These texts—and Atlantic Studies as a whole—are crucial to understanding that the literary history of the Americas is one born not only of land, hope, and arrivals, but also of water and violence. |
