AML 5608 Spring 2023 Gaines

The plantation never went with the wind. In fact, the plantation and its organizational, capitalistic, racial, ecological, and material logics shape our contemporary moment to such a profound degree, some argue we dwell in an epoch of its making: the Plantationocene.

With no singular definition, the plantation exists in various forms and modalities around the world—recreating the world in its image since the 1400s. As we interrogate the Plantationocene, this course will focus primarily on the U.S. South and the Caribbean through an interdisciplinary consideration of literature, music, film, television, and the theoretical interventions of Black and Indigenous Studies. To situate the plantation at the center of this inquiry does not always mean we are only going to discuss violence and dispossession. This course insists the plantation is also a story about craftsmanship, agency, resistance, and beauty that, albeit complicated and resisting romance, still has something relevant to say about our current struggle for Black and Indigenous liberation.