Dear UIC students,
I am delighted to announce the topic for the Spring 2016 Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar: Break the Chains: Revolt, Rebellion, and Resistance in the World of Atlantic Slavery. The Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar is a team-taught interdisciplinary course that is open to undergraduates from four Chicago-area universities (DePaul, Loyola, UIC, and Roosevelt). The six-credit course provides undergraduate students an unparalleled opportunity to conduct archival research in one of the country's foremost public research libraries. This year the seminar will explore the many varieties of slave resistance in the Atlantic world, using primary documents from Europe, Africa, and especially the Caribbean. Topics will include revolt among maritime laborers; the creation of multicultural communities among enslaved Africans and Indigenous people; Caribbean slave revolts; the relationship between slave resistance and the abolitionist movement; slave conspiracies in the decades before the U. S. Civil War; and the influence of slave rebellions on the philosophy, music, and literature of the period.
The course will meet at the Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street, on Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-5:00 (January 12-May 5) and will be taught by Professor John Donoghue, associate professor of history at Loyola University, and Professor Jeffrey Glover, associate professor of English at Loyola.
Each student who is accepted into the seminar will be awarded a $250 scholarship to cover the cost of transportation and other research related expenses. Any junior or senior at UIC is eligible to apply.
To apply for the course, simply fill-out an application form and submit it electronically with the required materials to: Professor Lisa A. Freeman, lfreeman@uic.edu. The application deadline is Monday, November 2.
If you have questions about the course, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am eager to ensure a strong contingent of students from UIC and would be more than happy to meet with you to discuss the course.
Yours,
Lisa A. Freeman
Associate Professor and Associate Head
Department of English
