This seminar examines the largely under-researched social, legal, and cultural status of musicians of sub-Saharan African descent in early modern Europe. Through case studies, we explore Black musicians at the courts of Portugal and Spain, Black trumpeters and kettledrummers in the Holy Roman Empire, Black singers in seventeenth-century Florence, and Black composers and performers in the urban musical cultures of France and England. The course also analyzes musical constructions of Blackness in different musical genres, such as the villancicos de negros from early modern Iberia and its colonies, and the figure of Monostatos in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Situating these examples within broader histories of race-making, enslavement and freedom, mobility, and labor, we consider musical performance as both exploitation and potential agency within courtly and colonial power structures. Drawing on key English-language works on critical race, postcolonial, and court studies, students learn to interpret the biographies and sonic practices of Black musicians as part of Europe’s entangled histories of music/sound, power, race, and empire.

This seminar investigates how landscapes, waterscapes, and the human body functioned as contested sites of meaning and power in antebellum America. Building on work in cultural history, cultural and literary studies, and environmental humanities, we analyze how cultural texts and visual media—such as slave narratives, nature writing, landscape painting, maps, and early photography—intervened in discourses on freedom, property, belonging, and nationhood. Emphasis is placed on close readings of primary material and on engagement with key theoretical frameworks (e.g., Black Studies, blue humanities, ecocriticism).

The class is open to M.A. E-SC students studying Extension Module 1 and 2. Master TnL (Profil- or Vertiefungsmodul) may also be admitted.

Requirements
• active participation in weekly in-person meetings,
• in-depth study of the primary and secondary material (including extensive weekly reading assignments) in preparation for each session,
• graded term paper or ungraded assignment in accordance with the respective module requirements.

This seminar investigates how landscapes, waterscapes, and the human body functioned as contested sites of meaning and power in antebellum America. Building on work in cultural history, cultural and literary studies, and environmental humanities, we analyze how cultural texts and visual media—such as slave narratives, nature writing, landscape painting, maps, and early photography—intervened in discourses on freedom, property, belonging, and nationhood. Emphasis is placed on close readings of primary material and on engagement with key theoretical frameworks (e.g., Black Studies, blue humanities, ecocriticism).

The class is open to M.A. E-SC students studying Extension Module 1 and 2. Master TnL (Profil- or Vertiefungsmodul) may also be admitted.

Requirements
• active participation in weekly in-person meetings,
• in-depth study of the primary and secondary material (including extensive weekly reading assignments) in preparation for each session,
• graded term paper or ungraded assignment in accordance with the respective module requirements.