Race and Reunion:

“The unresolved legacy of emancipation is still a part of our lives.”

- Eric Foner, Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course traces the American romance with the antebellum southern United States. The class will examine how optimistic views of the “Old South” eventually took hold as white politicians drove the nation to prioritize white national reconciliation over African American advancement on equal terms with white citizens in the American body politic. We will weave historical understanding based on David Blight’s Race and Reunion and other works with evidence of the visual culture to confront what Blight and others call the “Lost Cause Mythology,” the view that an admirable and heroic way of life had been defeated in the Civil War and that it might justly rise again. While we will consider narrative materials including veterans’ newspapers and daughters of the confederacy memoirs, we will especially focus on the visual culture, including paintings, monuments, photographs, and everyday pen and ink illustrations.

Course objectives:

Animated by civic engagement and moral concern, upon completion of this course, the participant will be able to:

· Identify key concepts, major artists, and related actors relevant to the history of art and memory of the Civil War and Lost Cause mythology

· Demonstrate knowledge of different interpretive approaches to the study of the Civil War in art and memory

· Understand and reflect upon the role of race and emancipation within the history of post-war reconciliation

· Recognize the significant relationships between politics, history, art, and race in nineteenth-century America

A pdf of the full syllabus is available here and below: