Pre- and Post-Civil War Slave Narratives

Webinar Leader

William L. Andrews
E. Maynard Adams Professor of English
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Webinar Details

In this seminar, we will examine salient passages from key texts representing the antebellum and postbellum slave narrative to consider how slavery, images of slaves themselves, and the meaning and purpose of freedom evolved in the slave narrative during the 19th century. From the antebellum era, we will discuss classic narratives by Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and William Grimes. From the postbellum era, we will examine texts by well-known figures, such as Elizabeth Keckley and Washington, and a few who have been seldom read or considered, such as John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay Bruce.