| Arabic Slave Writings and the American Canon
Exploring the literary foundations of early America, NIU's ENGL 331 "American Literature 1830-1860" has traditionally surveyed the nation's most iconic texts, from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature to Herman Melville's Moby Dick, to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Consistent with NEH's Bridging Cultures initiative, I propose to revise and expand the curriculum for this core course, introducing NIU undergraduates to the cross-cultural and multi-lingual texture of America's first decades. Specifically, I aim to integrate into ENGL 331 my own research concerning a pivotal, yet largely unrecognized, element of U.S. literary history: personal writings by African slaves of Muslim descent, composed during their captivity in America, authored in Arabic.
[Grant products]
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Project fields:
American Literature
Program:
Teaching Development Fellowships
Division:
Research Programs
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Totals:
$21,000 (approved)
$21,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
7/1/2011 – 11/30/2011
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