This activity is part of a course on Black Feminist and Womanist Theology and Theory. The current activity is intended for the second class lecture, which introduces learners to the so-called first wave of black feminism. One primary underlying tenet is that the “first wave” did not usually (if ever) refer to themselves as black feminists, or feminists at all.  Their writings, speeches and activism qualify as black feminist work based on our contemporary understandings of such.  

Through this lesson, students will be able to identify how the formal elements of various documents produce representations of the Caribbean as a complex and layered space impacted by slavery, industry, agriculture, and colonial and touristic desire. They will be able to describe the differences between textual and visual representations of landscape and articulate how form impacts content. Building on an understanding of the multiplicity of ways the same space can be represented, they will also be able to critically interrogate the rhetoric of representative media.

The following in-class exercise calls upon students to dissect narratives of the Red Summer of 1919 using a provided collection of primary documents pulled from the Visualizing the Red Summer project. This activity can be done individually or in groups. The sensitive nature of the documents, which may include descriptions of violent events may privilege group work. Depending on the students’ prior exposure to the subject matter, they may find space to discuss and process with their peers cathartic. 

In this six-minute video lecture, Prof. Patrick Allitt discusses the Alaskan Pipeline, domestic oil production, and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (1989). This lesson includes Allitt's lecture with slides, a primary source (the National Response Team's Report to the President, 1989), and questions to guide student discussion. Patrick Allitt is Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University and an OAH Distinguished Lecturer. He was an undergraduate at Oxford in England (1974-1977), a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley (Ph.D., 1986), and held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and Princeton University. At Emory since 1988, he teaches courses on American intellectual, environmental, and religious history, on Victorian Britain, and on the Great Books. Author of seven books (most recently A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism, 2014), he is also presenter of eight lecture series with "The Great Courses" (www.thegreatcourses.com), including "The Art of Teaching” and, most recently, “The Industrial Revolution.”

Professor Patrick Allitt discusses the California Gold Rush in a five-minute video lecture. This lesson also includes a primary source--a letter from one gold rush participant to his cousin--and questions to guide student discussion. Patrick Allitt is Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University and an OAH Distinguished Lecturer. He was an undergraduate at Oxford in England (1974-1977), a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley (Ph.D., 1986), and held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and Princeton University.  At Emory since 1988, he teaches courses on American intellectual, environmental, and religious history, on Victorian Britain, and on the Great Books.  Author of seven books (most recently A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism, 2014), he is also presenter of eight lecture series with "The Great Courses" (www.thegreatcourses.com), including "The Art of Teaching” and, most recently, “The Industrial Revolution.”