CSP 22 Pirates, Slaves, and Empire

This course considers the role that piracy and the transatlantic slave trade played in the foundations of Atlantic empires. Discussions will focus on interactions between pirates (male and female), sailors, captives, privateers, corsairs, chartered companies, and European colonizers. Through historical accounts, fiction, and film we will examine life on the high seas, the local and global in the movement of people, goods and ideas, and the regulatory role of the state. We will be attentive to the position of pirates as an emerging social group, as well as addressing themes such as capitalism, citizenship, masculinity, revolt, the Middle Passage, and profit vs. morality. In addition, we will analyze representations of slaves and pirates in popular culture.