While Sinners operates as a supernatural thriller, its deeper themes center on artistic freedom, cultural memory, and the ownership of Black creative expression. Set in the 1930s Mississippi Delta, the film presents blues music as both a cultural archive and a form of resistance, illustrating how Black artistic traditions have preserved identity and community across generations. The film also interrogates the historical exploitation of Black creativity, inviting students to consider who controls cultural production, who benefits from it, and why ownership of stories remains a vital question. Using the film as a central text, students will examine topics including the historical development of race and racism, Black cultural production, the blues tradition, the Great Migration, Jim Crow segregation, religious traditions, memory, folklore, systems of power, representation in popular culture, and the relationship between history and horror. The course also considers how supernatural narratives can serve as metaphors for historical trauma, cultural appropriation, and collective resilience.