Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, pp. 193-end (Ethel-The North)
Digital Proje
Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, pp. 193-end (Ethel-The North)
Digital Project: “Freedom on the Move” (https://freedomonthemove.org/ https://dlas.uncg.edu/notices/)
Salvan, “Narrative Structure and the Unnarrated in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad” OR Goyal, “Post-Black Satire,” from Runaway Genres: The Global Afterlives of Slavery (the PDF links below)
The framework for this class session is Contextualizing the routes to freedom in the Neo-Slave Narrative: The Scholarly Article, the Book Chapter, and the Digital Humanities.
The Salvan piece you are reading is an example of a scholarly article, meaning that it was written by an academic researcher in a particular field or discipline and was peer reviewed by other scholars who have expertise in the field (for more on scholarly articles, click here or here). Scholarly articles in the literary field usually discuss one, or pehaps a few, literary works.
The Goyal piece is a chapter from a scholarly book, which is a full-length work written by an academic researcher that contributes new research and insights to a discipline or field (for more on scholarly books, click here or here). In the literary field, scholarly books usually cover multiple literary works connected to a specific theme or topic. **Note: When doing your own research, you may also consider bringing in scholarly books from other disciplines, such as history, sociology, anthropology, or political science, to provide context for your research topic.
“Freedom on the Move” is a digital databse of ads used to locate fugitives and return them to their owners. It is similar to the “North Carolina Runaway Slave Notices project” that Whitehead used in his research, but it includes postings from other states.
After you have completed the readings, you will need to do the following for the asynchronous assignment:
Summarize the key points of either Salvan or Goyal as they relate to Underground Railroad.
“Freedom on the Move” describes the significance of collecting runaway ads as follows: “Created to control the movement of enslaved people, the ads ultimately preserved the details of individual lives–their personality, appearance, and life story. Taken collectively, the ads constitute a detailed, concise, and rare source of information about the experiences of enslaved people.” Select several ads and describe the details and experiences they convey.
Discuss at least three separate passages from this session’s Underground Railroad reading from the perspective of “Freedom on the Move” and/or the article or chapter you selected. How do these sources provide you with a deeper understanding of Underground Railroad? You can summarize a longer passage or use direct quotations, but either way, provide MLA in-text citations for each passage you use (click here if you need guidance on MLA citations).