"The Wild Man in the Green Swamp and Other Stories about Race in America"
University of Chicago
October 16, 2021
C. Riley Snorton, Professor of English Language and Literature

Narratives about swamp people and swamp things punctuate the story of the New World, from the maroon communities constituted by Native peoples and formerly enslaved Africans beginning in the early 16th century to the first Asians (Filipinos) to arrive in the US, who settled in the swamps surrounding modern day New Orleans in 1763. As a place that is neither land nor water but both, the swamp functions as the grounds—as the “terra infirma”—for a series of considerations about difference, change, time, life, and death. In this session, the presenter explores each of these themes through tracing a figure who was called by many names but most commonly the “Wild Man of the Green Swamp,” which made national news in 1975.

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