Plato, “Allegory of the Cave” from The Republic

Herman Melville, “Bartleby” and “Benito Cereno”

Charles Johnson, Middle Passage

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (selections)

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Charles Johnson’s National Book Award-winning Middle Passage is hard to categorize: it is a sea adventure, a slave narrative, a philosophical novel, a comic burlesque, a religious parable.  It is also a sly retelling of “Benito Cereno,” a suspenseful tale about a slave revolt by the author of Moby-Dick.  In a number of ways, then, Middle Passage illustrates the importance of perspectivism—of looking at a subject from a variety of angles before claiming to know the approximate truth about it.  We will also enjoy Henry Louis Gates’ collection, in which important black Americans are profiled in essays that stress the ambiguity and complexity of identity.  Charles Johnson will also compel us to explore a variety of ways of looking at the universe: we will touch (lightly) on the philosophy of Plato, René Descartes, and Bishop Berkeley, as well as on Eastern thought.

Here's a link to information about the middle passage of the slave trade route.

Gates’ collection of essays, each originally published in the New Yorker, takes its title from a poem by Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Jean Gris, Portrait of Picasso

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2