Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. History Dept.
Advisor(s)
Sarah Duff
Abstract
The purpose of this project is to document and analyze the factors that contributed to periods of interest in, and literature/scholarship on, American slave narratives, with particular emphasis on the role of publishers and publication (or non-publication). The specific historiographical survey focuses on three distinct time periods: 1845 to 1929, the 1960s through the 1980s, and the 2000s through the 2020s, with the epilogue focusing on the most recent scholarship. I have chosen these time periods because they represent periods in which there were notable evolutions in the ways the narratives have been studied in America, many of which can be linked to changes in publication trends. Such evolutions involve changes in 1) whether the narratives were studied or disregarded (by whom) and why, 2) the capacity in which the narratives were read or trusted, 3) the disciplinary approaches or theoretical frameworks that were employed when studying the narratives, 4) the purposes or motivations behind studying the narratives, and 5) the way information from narratives was then applied to broader studies/understandings of concepts such as American slavery, the American South, or American history. Each change in the study of these narratives can be contextualized by the historical and intellectual moment in which these scholarly histories were written, and the publishing context in which they arose.
Keywords
African American History, Legacies of Slavery, Slave Narratives, United States History, Publishing, Book History
Recommended Citation
Sachs, Maya, "Publishing Power: A Historiographical Investigation Into Treatments of American Slave Narratives" (2024). Honors Theses. Paper 1464.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/1464