History and Literature 90CU. Fashion and Slavery

Jonathan Square

Tuesday, 2:00pm-4:00pm

This course examines the politics of fashion among people of African descent during slavery and the period immediately followed emancipation. Fashion is generative, yet underutilized analytic to explore the experience of the enslaved and their descendants. Geographical breadth is crucial to examining the African Diaspora in its full complexity; therefore, course material will cover the United States, Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa. We will examine in particular the relationship between slave consumerism and the development of modern capitalism in the Atlantic World. Other topics of the course will include: sumptuary law, wealth accumulation among the enslaved and formally enslaved, honor and respectability politics, commodification of the enslaved, gendered sartorial expression, etc.

Credits: 4