(All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise noted.)
AFROAM 101. Introduction to Black Studies
Interdisciplinary introduction to the basic concepts and literature in the disciplines covered by Black Studies. Includes history, the social sciences, and humanities as well as conceptual frameworks for investigation and analysis of Black history and culture.
AFROAM 111. Survey African Art
Major traditions in African art from prehistoric times to present. Allied disciplines of history and archaelogy used to recover the early history of certain art cultures. The aesthetics in African art and the contributions they have made to the development of world art in modern times. (Gen. Ed. AT, G)
AFROAM 113. African Diaspora Arts
Visual expression in the Black Diaspora (United States, Caribbean, and Latin America) from the early slave era to the present.
AFROAM 117. Survey of Afro-American Literature
The major figures and themes in Afro-American literature, analyzing specific works in detail and surveying the early history of Afro-American literature. What the slave narratives, poetry, short stories, novels, drama, and folklore of the period reveal about the social, economic, psychological, and artistic lives of the writers and their characters, both male and female. Explores the conventions of each of these genres in the period under discussion to better understand the relation of the material to the dominant traditions of the time and the writers' particular contributions to their own art. (Gen. Ed. AL, U) (Planned for Fall)
AFROAM 118. Survey of Afro-American Literature II
Introductory level survey of Afro-American literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the present, including DuBois, Hughes, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Walker, Morrison, Baraka and Lorde. (Gen. Ed. AL, U) (Planned for Spring)
AFROAM 132. African-American History 1619-1860
Overview of the history of African-Americans from the development of colonial slavery and the rise of African-American communities and culture. African background; Black protest tradition including abolitionism; the distinct experience of Black women. (Gen. Ed. HS, U) (Planned for Fall)
AFROAM 133. African-American History Civil War-1954
Major issues and actions from the beginning of the Civil War to the 1954 Supreme Court decision. Focus on political and social history: transition from slavery to emancipation and Reconstruction; the Age of Booker T. Washington; urban migrations, rise of the ghettoes; the ideologies and movements from integrationism to black nationalism. (Gen. Ed. HS, U) (Planned for Spring)
AFROAM 151. Literature & Culture
Relevant forms of Black cultural expressions contributing to the shape and character of contemporary Black culture; the application of these in traditional Black writers. Includes West African cultural patterns and the Black past; the transition-slavery, the culture of survival; the cultural patterns through literature; and Black perceptions versus white perceptions. (Gen.Ed. AL, U)
AFROAM 155. Revolutionary Concepts in Afro-American Music I
Introduction to history of Black music from its African origins to the end of the 19th century. (Gen. Ed. AT, U) (Planned for Fall)
AFROAM 156. Revolutionary Concepts in Afro-American Music II
African-American music from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. (Gen. Ed. AT, U) (Planned for Spring)
AFROAM 161. Introduction to Afro-American Political Science
Survey of the politics of the Black community in the U.S. The history of Black political development, major theories which explain Black political life, social, economic, psychological and institutional environment from which Black politics flows. Attention paid to 1988 presidential campaign and the rise of Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition. (Gen.Ed. SB, U)
AFROAM 170-171. The Minority Experience in American Life and Culture I and II
This course is the academic component required of all first year undergraduates enrolled in the PUMA Program. PUMA is a mentoring program designed to introduce a selected group of incoming minority students to techniques of independent research and to facilitate their acclimation to the intellectual and scholarly culture of the university. The program is open each year to forty + first year students. This course combines instruction in research techniques in a variety of Humanistic and Social Science disciplines, and hands-on experience with those techniques, with substantive materials focusing on the long struggle of minority populations for full participation in American cultural and public life. As students go through the year-long course, they will be encouraged to attempt their own research investigations, and in the second semester will be required to undertake a substantial piece of individual research, under the guidance of their mentor. (Gen. Ed. I, D)
AFROAM 190G. Racism: the American Experience
Some present-day examples of racism in the workplace and criminal justice system. The roots of racism in North America. Examination of the various uses and purposes of racism as they developed over the course of the nation's history. The World War II incarceration of Japanese-Americans and the FBI's suborning of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The investigation and analysis of contemporary racism as expressed in, and revealed by, the print media of today.
AFROAM 191A. African American Short Stories
Students in this course will receive an introduction to the African American short story and to the major themes, issues, concepts, as well as the literary techniques and forms prevalent in African American literature.
AFROAM 191B. African American Literature of the 1950s
An examination of African American literature and culture from onset of the Great Depression until the end of World War II. It will engage a range of cultural forms, including the visual arts, music, theater, and film as well as literature. It will also investigate the political and social context out which these cultural forms grew. Finally, it will consider such generic questions as the relation of black cultural production to artistic movements, including modernism, proletarian literature, social realism, and naturalism, and to popular and high culture representations of African Americans and African American culture.
AFROAM 222. Black Church In America
Survey of West African religions. The development of the Black Christian Church in its visible and "invisible" institutional forms during the colonial period, and the merging of these two branches, free and slave, following the Civil War. Also the emergence of Holiness and Pentecostal sects, the impact of urban migrations on black spiritual expression, the Black Church and civil rights, gender issues, and the recent challenge of Islam.
AFROAM 232. History of Black Nationalism
Black nationalism in the United States, beginning with voluntary associations developed by free blacks in the late 19th century up to the Afrocentric "hiphop" expressions of the 1990s. The interrelationships between the economic, political, and cultural forms of African American nationalism analyzed along with its secular and religious expressions. The intimate connections between nationalist and assimilationist tendencies in African American life.
AFROAM 234. The Harlem Renaissance
Exploration of the cultural explosion also termed the New Negro movement, from W.E.B. Du Bois through the early work of Richard Wright. Essays, poetry, and fiction, and the blues, jazz, and folklore of the time examined in terms of how Harlem Renaissance artists explored their spiritual and cultural roots, dealt with gender issues, sought artistic aesthetic and style adequate to reflect such concerns. Readings supplemented by contemporary recordings, visual art, and videos.
(Gen. Ed. AL, U)
AFROAM 235. Black Sociological Thought
Assessment of current sociological views of the African-American experience. (Gen. Ed. SB, U)
AFROAM 236. History of the Civil Rights Movement
Examination of the Civil Rights Movement from the Brown v. Topeka decision to the rise of Black power. All the major organizations of the period, e.g., SCLC, SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and the Urban League. The impact on white students and the anti-war movement. (Gen. Ed. HS, U)
AFROAM 238. Arts and Cultural Identity
Explores the arts as they are used to express cultural identity. It will examine various genres of art by artists of color and their application of cultural and social issues to their work. Using the exhibits and performances presented in the Augusta Savage Art Gallery, the curator will draw on those presentations for discussions and critiques of the arts as reflective of culture and as historical record. The course will include readings by and about artists, video viewings, the creation of arts projects, and discussions about the relationship of creativity to cultural expression.
AFROAM 243 Afro-American FolkloreA close look at the origins, variety, nature, and functions of Afro-Americanfolklore, including contexts for collecting and understanding it and itsmanifestations in literature and popular music.
AFROAM 252. Black Image In American Writing
Examination of a representative sampling of poetry, prose and/or drama by American writers -- black and white, male and female -- depicting African-American characters and issues related directly to the lives of African Americans. Texts chosen from the works of such authors as Jefferson, Poe, Stowe, Melville, Douglass, Delany, Dunbar, Eliot, Faulkner, Hurston, Wright, Baldwin, Styron, Baraka, and Morrison. We will analyze and interpret material in light of issues of race, gender, class, politics, historical time frame, and artistic aesthetic, in order to characterize the depictions of African-Americans in the works, and to understand what those depictions reflect about individual writers, about segments of American society, and about American society as a whole.
AFROAM 254. Introduction to African Studies
Introduction to Africa from an interdisciplinary perspective. The chronological sequence from pre-history to contemporary times. Political development and processes, the arts, ethnography, social structures, and economies. (Gen. Ed. HS, G)
AFROAM 257. Contemporary African-American Novel
Survey of the Black novel from 1940 to the present; major Black novelists of the contemporary period. Emphasis on what these novelists have to say about the black experience in the latter half of the 20th-century. Themes include alienation and identity, revolution, and existentialism. Attention to the styles of various writers and their use of the language.
AFROAM 262. Radical Traditions in American History
The rise and fall of various radical movements in the United States from the American Revolution to the 1960s. The success and limitations of ideologies and strategies adopted by American radicals to address the problems of political inequality and social injustice. Topics include abolitionism, labor movements, populism, socialism, feminism, and the civil rights movement.
AFROAM 264. Foundations of Black Education in the U.S.
The education of blacks from Reconstruction to 1954. Includes public schools, colleges, and non-school education. The involvement of religious associations, philanthropic organizations, the Freedman’s Bureau, the Black church, and the Federal Government will also be discussed. (Gen. Ed. HS, U)
AFROAM 265. The Blues Came Down Like Dark Night Showers of Rain
A comprehensive exploration of the African American musical genre known as the blues, including definitions; African and African American roots; social, psychological, and spiritual uses; common and uncommon themes and images; music and lyric structures; regional and chronological stylistic variations; and employment in African American literature. Includes live performances and a wide variety of recordings, films, and videos. No prior knowledge of the blues or reading knowledge of music required. (Gen. Ed. AT, U)
AFROAM 290D. Afro-Am Poetry: Beginning to 1900
An intensive look at African American poetry before the Harlem Renaissance. It will encompass orature and literature, including folk and popular music as well as the literary output of such African American writers as Phillis Wheatley, George Moses Horton, James Whitfield, Frances E. W. Harper, Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, and Fenton Johnson. It will also take up the relation of African American poetry to broad political and cultural movements, such U.S. republicanism, abolitionism, romanticism, transcendentalism, local color, and modernism. (Gen. Ed. AL, U)
AFROAM 291E. The Black Seventies Through Film
This course focuses on the cinematic representations of African Americans in the 1970s, a crucial transitional era marked by the demise of racial segregation and the fulfillment of formal political and civil rights for Black Americans on the one hand, and the decline of the quality of life in urban centers and unprecedented rates of incarceration on the other. How did 1970s filmmakers engage with and refute dominant cultural and Hollywood images of African Americans while crating a cinematic language specific to African American experiences? Discussion topics include: “The Ghetto Aesthetic;” “Beyond Hollywood: African American Art Cinema;” “Interrogating Blaxpoitation;” “Uses of Music;” “Gender Portrayals;” “The Black Hero.”
AFROAM 297B. African American Women’s Narratives
AFROAM 297G. Introduction to African Diasporan Studies
This course considers some of the questions provoked by African and African diasporan experiences. For example, is an African diaspora and objective reality or has it existed solely in response to American and European notions of racial difference? What have been the characteristics encompassed by that reality or those notions of race? Course materials will allow students to survey the lasting contributions of Africans and their descendants to the development of various world civilizations and examine historical relationships between the individual actors and larger ideological forces.
AFROAM 326. Black Women in U.S. History
The history of African American women from the experience of slavery to the present. Emphasis on the effect of racist institutions and practices on women. The ways in which women organized themselves to address the needs of African Americans in general and their own in particular. The achievements of such leaders as Mary Church Terrell, Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, and Mary McLeod Bethune as well as lesser known women. (Gen. Ed. HS, U)
AFROAM 331. Life and Writings of W.E.B. Du Bois
Examination of the life and thought of perhaps America's greatest intellectual activist and one of Massachusetts' native sons. Microfilm research in the Du Bois archives in the Tower Library. (Gen. Ed. U)
AFROAM 332. Blacks and Jews
Our aim in this course is to share with students an understanding of the scope and diversity of the relations of African Americans and Jewish Americans in the U.S., during the past 300 years. One of our purposes is to minimize the tendency toward comparing degrees of suffering, or posing an “Us versus Them” framework that ignores the more complex interactions that have characterized Black-Jewish relations over time and in different geographical parts of the U.S.
AFROAM 345. Southern Literature
Southern literature by African Americans, including slave narratives, autobiography, fiction and poetry. Concepts and issues of time, oppression and violence, culture and tradition, family and community, roots of social change as they impact factors of identity, race, class, and gender. (Gen. Ed. AL, U)
AFROAM 350. African American Islam
A history of Islamic influences among peoples of African descent in North America: Muslim beliefs of enslaved Africans, the spread of Ahmadi and Sunni Islam in the 20th-century, and the Nation of Islam and its offshoots.
AFROAM 354. Contemporary African Novel
AFROAM 361. Revolution in the Third World
Changing nature of revolution in the Third World, from the "classical" revolutions in Cuba, China, Algeria and Vietnam to the popular insurgencies of Grenada, Iran, the Philippines and Haiti. Internal and external factors which have contributed to the fall from grace of many of these once popularly supported struggles.
AFROAM 365. Composition: Style & Organization
Expository writing focusing primarily on argumentative and narrative essays. Discussion and practice of logic—inductive and deductive reasoning—as it relates to the argumentative essay form. Topics as thesis on main idea, organization, style, unity, supporting evidence, avoiding logical fallacies, and basic writing mechanics, including constructing sentences, paragraphing, transitions, and correct grammar.
AFROAM 390A. Jazz and Blues Literature
A representative sampling of poetry, novels, short stories, and plays by black and white, male and female writers who draw upon jazz and blues music and lyrics either formally, stylistically, thematically, or spiritually. (Gen. Ed. AL, U)
AFROAM 390B. Life & Work of Richard Wright
An intensive look at the life and work of Richard Wright, encompassing his poetry and fiction. We will examine the development of Wright's work from the 1930s to the 1950s, paying attention to historical and cultural developments that contributed to his vision, with particular emphasis on reflections of Afro-American culture in his work. No prerequisites.
AFROAM 390C. Afro-Am Literature of 1930's
An intensive look at the literature of African Americans between the Harlem Renaissance and the emergence of Richard Wright and his naturalistic vision. The historical context, the continuing influence of the Harlem Renaissance, other art of the period, the influence of the political climate on the poetry and prose of representative African American writers of the 1930s, and the directions for African American literature of the 1940s mapped out in the 1930s. (Gen. Ed. AL, U)
AFROAM 390D. Langston Hughes
An intensive look at the life and work of Langston Hughes, encompassing his poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and drama. We will examine the development of Hughes’s work from the 1920s to the 1960s, paying attention to historical and cultural developments that contributed to his vision, with particular emphasis on Hughes’s use of African American music in his works. This honors course will require additional participation and a group presentation beyond normal course requirements.
(Gen. Ed. AL, U)
AFROAM 390E. Race, Ethnicity & Gender in U.S. History
Examination of situations which illuminate intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender in antebellum U.S.: contact and interaction between American Indians, African-Americans and European-Americans in colonial New England; relationship between white and black women, both slave and free, in the South; and the development of racist ideologies and behavior in the white working classes. (Gen. Ed. HS, U)
AFROAM 390G. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Novel, Its Sources, and Literary Responses in the 19th Century
The course will focus on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, locating its roots in earlier publications such as slave narratives; discussing the novel in the context of the literary aesthetics of its era and its social and political impact in its times; and exploring how other writers, and Stowe herself, responded to the issues it raised and the criticism it provoked.
AFROAM 390J. Cross-Disciplinary Contemporary Issues: War and Patriotism in African American Literature and History
The course will provide students an introduction—through the context of war and patriotism—to the complex social and political literature and history of African Americans. This course also will afford students an opportunity to read and think critically about the various meanings and purposes of war and patriotism. By focusing on war and patriotism, we are able to condense over two hundred years of literature and history into specific flashpoints where definitions of nation, patriotism, war, and citizenship are questioned, defended and sometimes redefined by African Americans. (Gen. Ed. I, U)
AFROAM 390K. The Life and Art of Sterling A. Brown
A discussion of the life and major poetry and prose works of Sterling A. Brown, placing his works in the context of American literature and culture (especially music and folklore) of his times.
AFROAM 391A. Political Thought of Martin & Malcolm
The contrasting philosophies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. on race and racism, non-violence and self-defense, integration and separatism, Christianity and Islam; their interaction and involvement with the Civil Rights Movement; the northern and southern political and social culture that shaped their thoughts and world-views; and their changing conceptions of the appropriate tactics and strategy for the black freedom struggle in America.
AFROAM 391B. Modern Afro-American Women Novelists
Examine novels written by African American women from the Harlem Renaissance to the present. The course will engage a simple, but fundamental issue: is there such a thing as modern African American women’s literature? If so, how might we define it? Some of the ways that we come at this issue will be from the point of genre (e.g., the novel of manners, the slave narrative, the sentimental novel, the gothic romance, the historical novel, and so on.), audience reception, and the relation of the novels to popular culture. Historical contexts of the novels and the impact of various artistic, intellectual, and social movements (e.g., the Civil Rights, Black Power/Arts, First and Second Wave Feminism, and Gay Liberation) on the formal and thematic choices of the authors studied will also be considered.
AFROAM 391C. Creative Writing-Fiction
A writing workshop on the techniques, strategies, and craft of writing short fiction. Format includes class analysis of student's work, exercises in specific techniques such as narrative, description, dialogue, etc.
AFROAM 391E. Afro-American Literature of the 1940s
In this course we will examine African American literature and culture from the beginning of World War II through the onset of the Cold War. We will focus primarily on literature and film, but will also consider the visual arts, music, and theater. We will investigate the relation of black cultural production to the political and social events of the era as well as to such artistic movements and popular and high culture genres as modernism, social realism, naturalism, pulp fiction, and horror films.
AFROAM 391. Critique of the Concept of Racism
Most investigations of racism tend to equate it to race theory, persistent prejudice, institutionalized discrimination and/or consign it to the realms of biology, psychology or sociology. This seminar will focus on racism in North America with particular attention to the Native American, African, and African-American experiences with a special focus on the role of racism as both economic and political capital in the development of American society.
AFROAM 392A. Songbirds, Blues Women and Soul Women
The focus for this course is the cultural, political, and social issues found in the music and history of African American women performers. The primary emphasis in the course will be on African American women in Jazz, Blues, and Soul/R&B, but students also will study African American women composers as well as Spiritual-Gospel and Opera performers.
AFROAM 394A. African Art History
Reliable chronology for African art history of placing of the art forms of some of the ethnic cultural groups, associations or countries in Africa in historical perspective. Allied disciplines of anthropology and archaeology used to recover early history of certain cultures. Related oral sources discussed.
AFROAM 395A. The Writings of Chinua Achebe
Review of Achebe's writings, concentrating on his five novels and his writings on culture, literature, and politics. Achebe's contribution to the literature of the modern world. Works read in the context of tradition of modern African literature, of which Achebe is a seminal figure.
AFROAM 397A. Abolition & Anti-Slavery
The rise of the abolition movement and political antislavery in the United States in the three decades before the Civil War. How abolitionists managed to make slavery an issue in national politics; the spread of political antislavery in the north after the rise of the controversy over slavery expansion. Older debates over the nature of moral reform movements, and some of the recent material on the role of African Americans and women in the efforts to abolish slavery. Evaluation of the success and limitations of the abolition movement as a radical movement against slavery and racial discrimination. Contact instructor for suggested background readings.
AFROAM 397B. Native Americans & African Americans
Explores numerous levels and terms of the encounter between Native Americans and Blacks, including native tribal identity, Black identity, famous people of mixed ancestry, contested identities, Native Americans in jazz and pop music. Native and Black cultural traditions in intermarriage, Native Americans as slaves, slavery and freedmen, "free colored" communities, decoding historical documents, tribal legacy assertions, "triracials," and the impact of mixed ancestry on both Black and native communities.
AFROAM 397C. The Black Experience with Modern Imperialism
This undergraduate seminar encourages students to explore the varied experiences of African and African-descended peoples with imperialism. Historical perspective on the issues of collaboration, victimization, and resistance will be considered for Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
AFROAM 591A. Gender in Pan-African Studies
This course reviews the historical literature related to the social construction of masculinity and femininity for African and African-descended peoples. The course compares the ways gendered notions of family, community, and nation have impacted local and international projects of black liberation. In addition to the U.S. and Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America will be important regions of consideration.
