Teaching Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative: Pedagogical Strategies and New Perspectives

Introduction

Introduction Eric D. Lamore Critical readings of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself far outweigh analyses that examine the teaching of this eighteenth-century text. Currently, teacher-scholars have access to scholarly essays that focus on the authenticity of the author’s African origins, the implications of this authenticity debate, the appropriate generic classification(s) for the narrative, the usefulness of applying colonial and postcolonial theory to read the Narrative, the legitimacy of placing the narrative in a given literary canon or canons, and the purpose of Equiano’s use of religious and secular rhetorics in the Narrative, among other relevant topics. Clearly, these critical interpretations of Equiano’s text offer pertinent commentary on the Narrative for teacher-scholars as they prepare to bring all or parts of the text into the classroom. however, meaningful teaching of the Narrative, or any other text for that matter, calls for more than just assigning scholarship to students or articulating significant points found in scholarly articles in classroom discussions. With this observation in mind, we may conclude that while several exciting and varied investigations exist to enrich teacher-scholars’ understanding of Equiano and his eighteenth-century text, these readings of the Narrative do not offer a pedagogical model to work with and against in their classrooms. Until now, no volume exists that discusses ways to share pedagogically this multifaceted narrative with diverse students across the curriculum. Even though Equiano and his 1789 narrative are frequently discussed topics in a variety of intellectual fields, the successful teaching of the text remains an underexplored topic.1 in searching pedagogical scholarship for help in teaching Equiano, we discover three significant patterns. first, teacher-scholars seldom focus solely on the teaching of Equiano’s Narrative in pedagogical articles, usually referencing his text only briefly as one among others taught in the fields of xvi introduction early American studies, African American studies, and autobiography studies. Second, these articles often do not contain adequate discussion of the pedagogical strategies that teacher-scholars can use when exploring the contents of the eighteenth-century narrative with their students. Third, some investigations of teaching Equiano do not explore fully the justifications for teaching the narrative in a given pedagogical context.2 Given such limitations in the scholarship on teaching Equiano, it is clear that this is a pedagogical topic in need of further exploration. Teaching Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative remedies this gap by focusing explicitly on the identification of classroom spaces in which teacher-scholars currently assign this seminal text. This volume blends new readings of Equiano’s Narrative with relevant justifications for why this eighteenth-century text matters in the contemporary moment. furthermore, the contributions found here purposefully tackle the pedagogical problems that accompany the teaching of this text and the specific strategies that instructors can employ to ensure that students understand this multilayered narrative and the cultural and historical contexts that helped shape and continue to shape this popular text. Although the authors of these diverse essays draw on theories and texts from different disciplinary fields, we discover throughout this volume a uniform argument which holds that by including this work as an integral part of their courses, teacher-scholars enhance their students’ learning in a variety of important ways, not the least of which is improving their understanding of the dynamics of the early Atlantic World. On yet another level, this book strives to articulate why this eighteenth-century book remains fresh, relevant, and important to contemporary students, regardless of whether they are literature majors, non-majors, undergraduates, or graduate students studying Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, Great Britain, the Arctic region, or Europe. The Narrative enhances courses because it is, on one hand, a text that allows our students to explore a plethora of pertinent topics: Equiano’s strategic representations of his Eboe nation, the dynamics and geography of the eighteenthcentury slave trade, the economic dimension of the slave trade, the representations of Africa and Africans in the European imagination, transatlantic travel in the early Atlantic World, and the Middle Passage. Careful teaching of this literary text also requires instructors to discuss with their students such topics as apologias for the eighteenth-century transatlantic slave trade, the Seven years’ War, the introduction xvii presence of the “talking book” in African American and Afro-British literary texts, Equiano’s rigorous book tour, debates over the slave...