37 pages 1 hour read

Saidiya V. Hartman

Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along The Atlantic Slave Route

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2007

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Essay Topics

1.

Consult the Wikipedia entries for Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana, and Colonialism. What do you learn that might explain the world Hartman encounters in West Africa when she begins her research project? Does your research explain her sense of disappointment? 

2.

Consult Wikipedia for Atlantic Slave Trade. Discuss five ways in which the entry corroborates Hartman’s depiction of slavery.

3.

At one point, Hartman mentions Thomas Sankara. Research him and discuss his significance for the dream of a more egalitarian world that Hartman articulates.