The nervous chatter was loud; the silence was louder.  I had four U.S. history survey students in my car on Wednesday evening driving back to campus after watching 12 Years a Slave. Some students were animatedly discussing the film, some were wiping tears, some appeared stoic, but all were affected.  The movie is powerful, and it certainly affected me.

It also ruined my plans for class today.  The syllabus called for a quiz, but I was uncomfortable in requiring the students to spend the past 36 hours reviewing their notes on the bank war, the cult of domesticity, or Indian Removal.  The experience of that short drive made it clear that the students needed time to think and, maybe even more importantly, time to feel.

My survey class asks students to reflect on the differences between presenting history in academic monographs, public museum exhibits, and popular entertainments.  It may be odd to describe 12 Years a Slave as a popular entertainment, but it is.  I allowed the students to openly discuss their reactions to the film before giving them a curveball. I handed the students an excerpt from Saidiya Hartman’s introduction to Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth Century America (Oxford, 1997).  The material was challenging so I gave them quite a bit of time to read it, and then asked them to rewrite the passage in their own words before comparing the result with a partner.  The excerpt is as follows:

Rather than inciting indignation, too often [displays of slavery] immure us to pain by virtue of their familiarity—the oft-repeated or restored character of these accounts and our distance from them are signaled by the theatrical language usually resorted to in describing these instances—and especially because they reinforce the spectacular character of black suffering.  What interests me are the ways we are called upon to participate in such scenes. Are we witnesses who confirm the truth of what happened in the face of the world-destroying capacities of pain, the distortions of torture, the sheer unrepresentability of terror, and the repressions of the dominant accounts?  Or are we voyeurs fascinated with and repelled by exhibitions of terror and sufferance?  What does the exposure of the violated body yield? Proof of black sentience of the inhumanity of the “peculiar institution”? Or does the pain of the other merely provide us with the opportunity for self-reflection? At issue here is the precariousness of empathy and the uncertain line between witness and spectator. Only more obscene than the brutality unleashed at the whipping post is the demand that this suffering be materialized and evidenced by the display of the tortured body or endless recitations of the ghastly and the terrible. (3-4)

After taking quite awhile to ensure that the students understood this passage, we discussed the difference between serving as a witness and a spectator to history.  I concluded by asking the students whether the film encourages witnessing or spectatorship, and whether popular entertainments can serve a responsible, respectful, and empathetic purpose.  Our discussion did not end tidily, but despite my earlier comments on this blog regarding the importance of well-structured introductions and conclusions to course sessions, in this case, I think it was for the best.  These, and other issues, will inform reflection papers that the students will write based on their reading of Northrup’s narrative and their experience with the film.  So far it seems like we have few answers, but many questions.