General Education Requirements
Course Description
Historical pirates were violent plunderers, ruthless torturers, and sanguinary murderers, or, to put it mildly: merciless criminals. In fact, in early modern times, pirates were such a bane that Anglo-Saxon Law developed a term to define them: “Enemies of Humanity,” and the punishment for piracy was, without fail, “hanging by the neck until dead.”
And yet, the last three hundred years have portrayed the pirate figure as a free spirit, a hero-like adventurer of sorts, burying fabulous riches on exotic islands, pioneering new modes of life against the oppressive nature of life on land. How do we reconcile a pirate’s historical reality with our romantic vision of pirates? This course will delve into the intricacies of both cultural histories of piracy and literary practices to disentangle reality from myth, fact from fiction and real-world people from fictional characters.
The first part of the course is dedicated to the investigation of the historical aspects of pirate life. Our point of departure will be the “Golden Age of Piracy” (1650-1730). We will study the routine of maritime life, ships as alternative spaces of sociability, the economies of pirating and their relationship with (or antagonism to) the establishment of colonial powers. We will also consider the emergence of sea narratives, through the analysis of travelogues, journals, and newspapers of the time.
The second part explores the romance of Caribbean Pirates in Anglophone culture, drawing from a variety of literary and cinematic works spanning the 18th–21st centuries. We will observe how sailors, privateers, pirates, and co. became the protagonists of new genres, and how these figures were leveraged to convey in covert ways discourses on gender and queerness, subversive commentary against authority, and political concerns on nation-building.
Corpus analyzed includes Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, Pirates of the Carribean (trilogy) and Our Flag Means Death.
Meet the Instructor: Cynthia Laura Vialle-Giancotti
“My name is Cynthia and I will be your instructor for the seminar, 'Pirates in the Western Imaginary: from Blackbeard to Jack Sparrow.' Here I am supposed to explain to you why I am interested in research and teaching about pirates, but let’s be honest: who did not love pirates and pirate costumes as a child (and maybe even today still?). As a researcher and scholar of the 18th-century, I am intrigued by the fact that these apparently horrible people who loved stealing and killing random (and innocent) sea travelers have become symbols of freedom and the heroes of our favorite stories. What else? I love reading books, looking for hidden meanings buried in a sophisticated use of language. I love the sea in all its manifestations, even though I get terribly seasick every time I try to sail unfortunately. I look forward to meeting you all.”
