This course will focus on the institution of the plantation across U.S. and Caribbean contexts and trace the circulation of its seductive imageries and imaginaries in the perpetuation of historical erasure and racial inequality. Reading plantations as sites of both unspeakable violence and vital storytelling, we will also explore those alternative imaginaries or recuperations of plantation landscapes through various aesthetic, material, and political interventions. Supported by close analysis of image and text, students will engage in the interdisciplinary study of the plantation as a powerful structural engine of visual culture, design, narrative, and modern life. Possible topics include the works of Kara Walker, Jean Rhys, Harriet Jacobs, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Marlon James, and Gone with the Wind (1939).