This advanced, interdisciplinary seminar considers how works of fiction enhance our understanding of the terms of democratic life. The theme of the seminar in the Fall of 2013 is the life and afterlife of slavery in American political experience. Our core texts will be Moby Dick, Invisible Man, and Beloved. In addition to considering these novels as works of political theory, we will read related work by writers from the antebellum, Jim Crow, and post-civil rights eras. With them, we will ask the following questions: How do these authors address the political circumstances of their own times in their work? In what ways do they make use of the presence of the past; how do they redescribe familiar histories or bring silenced histories to the fore; and how do they address the legacies of historic injustice (slavery, colonialism, and state violence)? In what ways do different texts work on their readers and what, if any, are the political consequences? How do the authors contribute to our understanding of ourselves as individuals and as citizens and to our conception of political identity (local, national, global)?

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