| Detailed Course Description: (Honors) Exploring the literary foundations of early nationhood, ENGL 331 has traditionally surveyed America’s most iconic authors. During Spring 2012, our course evolves and expands, focusing on a pivotal, yet largely unrecognized, element of U.S. Literature: personal writings by African slaves of Muslim descent, composed during their captivity in America, and authored in Arabic. Supported by an NEH Fellowship, ENGL 331H will be unique in aligning canonical writers (e.g. Irving, Emerson) with Muslim Slaves (e.g. ‘Abd ar-Rahman, Ibn Sayyid), discovering the cross-cultural, multi-lingual, and inter-religious contours of America’s first decades.
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