(See my earlier report on these cases from March and see excerpts from a new book by Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Tom Glaze noted in my post from last year). [read post]

When we get to Uncle Tom's Cabin and 12 Years A Slave I prompt the students to think about why abolitionists used narrative as a tool, why these narrative works were controversial and powerful in their day, and why it matters that 12 Years was nonfiction, and if it matters if maybe bits of it were slightly fictionalized.I also teach a class on the legal history of slavery, where we read Whitehead's Underground Railroad and Bisson's Fire on the Mountain. [read post]