Associate Professor of English Thomas Koenigs recently spoke at Brown University鈥檚 two-day symposium 鈥� The symposium seeks to explore the American Revolution ahead of the nation鈥檚 250th anniversary of its independence.
In his talk, 鈥淣atural Histories of the Heart鈥�: Fiction, Racial Interiority and the Revolutionary Legacy in the Antebellum Struggle Over Slavery,鈥� Koenigs examined two antebellum novels focused on anti-slavery. The two fictions, The Life and Opinions of Julius Melbourn by Delano Hammond and The Bondwoman鈥檚 Narrative by Hannah Crafts explore how 鈥渇ixations on Thomas Jefferson鈥檚 legacy are part of their interventions into the intertwined antebellum debates about slavery and racial interiority.鈥�
The novels, according to Koenigs, challenge the racist ideology widely spread by slavery advocates that Black people were incapable of 鈥渓iterary achievement.鈥� One of the novels was written by an enslaved Black woman.
At Scripps, Professor Koenigs specializes in in eighteenth and nineteenth century American fiction and novels and offers classes ranging from American Women Writers to The Slave Narrative and the Novel of Slavery.