UNDERGRADUATE
AFROAM 101. Introduction to Black Studies, 4 credits (I,DU)
Professor Torres
MW 2:30-3:45 pm
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 101. Introduction to Black Studies, 4 credits (I,DU)
Professor Davis
MW 4:00-5:15 pm
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 117. Survey of Afro-American Literature I, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Professor Rusert
Lecture: MW 11:15 – 12:05 pm Discussions: F 9:05 or F 10:10
This course covers the major figures and themes in African American literature before the Harlem Renaissance, analyzing specific works in detail and surveying this rich body of writing. It examines what slave narratives, poetry, short stories, novels, drama, and folklore of the eighteenth and nineteenth century reveal about the social, economic, psychological, and artistic lives of the writers and their characters. While we will discuss many different topics and themes across the semester, we will be particularly interested in tracking the relationships among black writers, artists, and activists in the period; examining the relationship between black writing and other artistic forms and media; and placing early African American writing within a long history of freedom struggles.
AFROAM 118. Survey of Afro-American Literature II, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Professor Davis
MW 5:30-6:45 pm
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.
AFROAM 132. African-American History: 1619-1860, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor Swiderski
Lecture: MW 12:20-1:10 pm Discussions: F 1:25 or F 2:30
This course will examine important developments and issues in African American history from the initial arrival of African slaves to Virginia until the Civil War. We will focus on the Black experience under slavery and the struggle for emancipation. Key topics to be discussed include the Atlantic slave trade, the evolution of African American communities and culture, free Black communities, the distinct experience of Black women, and Black protest traditions.
AFROAM 151. Literature & Culture, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Professor Torres
Lecture: MW 12:20 – 1:10 pm Discussions: F 9:05, F 10:10, F 1:25 or F 2:30
This course explores relevant forms of Black cultural expression that have contributed to the shape and character of contemporary Blackness. Topics to be discussed will include West African cultural patterns and the Black past; the transition-slavery; the culture of survival; cultural patterns evident in literature; and Black perceptions versus white perceptions.
AFROAM 156. Revolutionary Concepts in Afro-American Music II, 4 credits (AT,DU)
Professor Torres
MW 4:00-5:15 pm
This course will examine the development of African-American music during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century with a particular focus on links to the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, the Post Civil Rights era, and the Black Lives Matter Movement. In particular, the class will survey the varied styles, productions, and receptions of artists including Bessie Smith, Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Ma Rainey, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Leadbelly, Lightnin’ Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Mary Lou Williams, Charlie “Bird” Parker, Max Roach, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Archie Shepp, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Booker T. & the MGs, Sun Ra, The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Blackstar, The Roots, Lauryn Hill, India Arie, Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monae, Chance the Rapper, J Cole, among others.
AFROAM 161. Introduction to Afro-American Political Science, 4 credits (SB,DU)
Professor Swiderski
MW 10:10-11:00 am
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 of Jesse Jackson and its relevance to the 2008 election of Barack Obama.
AFROAM 170. The Grassroots Experience in American Life and Culture I, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor Guzman
TuTh 11:30-12:45 pm
What is the connection between art and activism? Who belongs to the “grassroots” in grassroots movements? And what does it mean for us today? Combining instruction in research techniques from a variety of Humanistic, Artistic, and Social Science disciplines with hands-on experience employing those techniques, this course explores the long struggle of minority populations for full participation in American cultural and public life—and our place within it.
AFROAM 170. The Grassroots Experience in American Life and Culture I, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Instructor: TBD
MW 2:30-3:45 pm
What is the connection between art and activism? Who belongs to the “grassroots” in grassroots movements? And what does it mean for us today? Combining instruction in research techniques from a variety of Humanistic, Artistic, and Social Science disciplines with hands-on experience employing those techniques, this course explores the long struggle of minority populations for full participation in American cultural and public life—and our place within it.
AFROAM 234. Literature of the Harlem Renaissance, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Professor Meeks
TuTh 10:00-11:15 am
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.
AFROAM 236. History of the Civil Rights Movement, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor Shabazz
Lecture: MW 11:15 – 12:05 p.m. Discussions: F 11:15 or F 12:20
This course examines the Civil Rights Movement from the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision in 1954 and through the rise and decline of Black Power. We will investigate the lives and influence of major movement leaders, as well as major organizations of the period including SCLC, SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP; and the collective efforts of ordinary citizens who did extraordinary things. We also will pay attention to the Civil Rights Movement in the South, as well as the North and West; the work of gender and sexuality; and different philosophical and tactical strands of the movement, including nonviolent demonstrations and black nationalism.
AFROAM 236. History of the Civil Rights Movement, 4 credits (HS,DU) On-line/University +
Instructor: Paul Michael Thomson
*Contact University Plus to register: https://www.umass.edu/universityplus/
This course examines the Civil Rights Movement from the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision in 1954 and through the rise and decline of Black Power. We will investigate the lives and influence of major movement leaders, as well as major organizations of the period including SCLC, SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP; and the collective efforts of ordinary citizens who did extraordinary things. We also will pay attention to the Civil Rights Movement in the South, as well as the North and West; the work of gender and sexuality; and different philosophical and tactical strands of the movement, including nonviolent demonstrations and black nationalism.
AFROAM 254. Introduction to African Studies, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor Covington-Ward
TuTh 1:00-2:15 pm
This course explores the diversity of the many peoples, cultures, and societies of Africa, both past and present. Moving beyond stereotypes and commonly held misconceptions about Africa and Africans, the course takes a multidisciplinary approach drawing on history, ethnography, literature, and film to explore a range of issues and topics relevant to the every-day lived experiences of Africans. These include topics such as Ancient Africa, Africa under European colonialism, urban Africa, African livelihoods, ideas of kinship, memory and forgetting, the impact of war, experiences of migration, youth movements, health and healing, Nollywood and other African films, technology growth, and music and popular culture (including Afrobeats), among other topics. A comparative approach will be used to illuminate these topics, drawing upon case studies from various countries and regions of the African continent, as well as historical and literary sources. While our longer case study is based on Liberia, we will also draw on our main class reader and various articles and films for examples from Nigeria, Senegal, and South Sudan, among other countries.
AFROAM 326. Black Women in U.S. History, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor Caldwell
MW 10:10-11:25 am
Using historical texts, film, television, and music, this course examines the history of African American women from slavery to the present. It will pay special attention to the convergence of race, gender, and class in shaping the black female experience; African American women’s activism against racial, gender, and economic injustices; and sex and sexuality.
AFROAM 326. Black Women in U.S. History, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Instructor: TBD
TuTh 2:30-3:45 pm
Using historical texts, film, television, and music, this course examines the history of African American women from slavery to the present. It will pay special attention to the convergence of race, gender, and class in shaping the black female experience; African American women’s activism against racial, gender, and economic injustices; and sex and sexuality.
AFROAM 365. Composition: Style & Organization, 3 credits
Professor Smethurst
Wednesdays 11:15-1:45 pm, NAH 302
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 390S. I Strike the Empire Back: Black Youth Culture in the Neoliberal Age, 3 credits
Professor Swiderski
TuTh 10:00-11:15 am, NAH 302
Using hip hop as a lens to explore the development of diasporic Black youth culture in the neoliberal age, this course considers the African American experience during the close of the 20th century and dawning of the 21st. Our investigation will be concerned with at least two things that we will examine in parallel throughout the semester. On one hand, we will dig deeply into the origins and evolution of hip hop artistry––including visual art, dance, music, lyrics, and performance––as well as the impact of commercial forces on those forms. On the other hand, we will pay serious attention to the ascendence of conservative political leaders in the United States and England during the 1970s whose policies emphasizing deregulation and privatization reshaped the global economy according to the tenets of neoliberalism, in order to understand the impact of those global economic and political realignments on the generation of black people who gave birth to or, later, inherited hip hop. Of central importance here will be the Nixon administration’s adoption of a policy of “benign neglect” toward low-income black communities living in the nation’s crumbling cities; the replacement of the War on Poverty with the War on Drugs; the enactment of “free trade” policies that accelerated the deindustrialization of the American economy and deepened the structural unemployment of black people; the militarization of municipal police forces; and the explosive growth of the carceral state.
AFROAM 494DI. Du Bois Senior Seminar, 3 credits
(IE Course for AfroAm Seniors& Juniors)
Professor Shabazz
MW 2:30-3:45 pm, NAH 302
This course builds on the intellectual, activist, and cultural-criticism traditions promoted by Massachusetts-born, African-American polymath W.E.B. Du Bois to fulfill the Gen. Ed. Integrative Experience requirement. The course asks students to consider the evolution of their academic, personal, and professional goals in relation to their previous coursework both inside and outside Afro-American Studies and the university’s Gen. Ed. curriculum. Particular attention will be placed on the social justice and cultural knowledge aspects of African American Studies. Department majors may use course-writing assignments as the foundation for a subsequent senior research project.
AFROAM 590L. Black Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, 3 credits (Undergrad/Grad)
Professor Guzman
Tuesdays 2:30-5:00 pm, NAH 302
This seminar will explore moments of possibility, belonging, and being in works of literature by Black and Indigenous Women from Latin America and the Caribbean. Through various methods and mediums, these writers raise the question: what exactly constitutes one’s sense of self and a sense of place? A type of temporal observation of space, community, and culture is seen through the images and their colors within the text. Black and Indigenous women across the hemisphere disrupt the perception of race, gender, and mestizaje by creatively sharing their experience in poetry, song, and performativity work. In this class, we answer the question: How do embodied practices become modes of organizing communities? How can we decipher the ancestral memories we carry and move through in our bodies? Existing in the both/and of Black and Indigenous feminisms that is rooted in a hemispheric understanding of race, gender, and sexuality. In the upper-level class Latin American women will expand our reading of various politics around identity, Indigeneity, and Blackness as they relate to the understanding of feminism.
GRADUATE
AFROAM 590L. Black Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, 3 credits (Undergrad/Grad)
Professor Guzman
Tuesdays 2:30-5:00 pm, NAH 302
This seminar will explore moments of possibility, belonging, and being in works of literature by Black and Indigenous Women from Latin America and the Caribbean. Through various methods and mediums, these writers raise the question: what exactly constitutes one’s sense of self and a sense of place? A type of temporal observation of space, community, and culture is seen through the images and their colors within the text. Black and Indigenous women across the hemisphere disrupt the perception of race, gender, and mestizaje by creatively sharing their experience in poetry, song, and performativity work. In this class, we answer the question: How do embodied practices become modes of organizing communities? How can we decipher the ancestral memories we carry and move through in our bodies? Existing in the both/and of Black and Indigenous feminisms that is rooted in a hemispheric understanding of race, gender, and sexuality. In the upper-level class Latin American women will expand our reading of various politics around identity, Indigeneity, and Blackness as they relate to the understanding of feminism.
AFROAM 652. Literature of the Harlem Renaissance, 4 credits
Professor Smethurst
Tuesdays 11:00-1:30 pm, NAH 302
An intensive study of the literature and orature associated with the Harlem Renaissance, from the philosophical underpinnings supplied by Du Bois, Johnson, Locke, Garvey, and Randolph to the varied poetic visions of Hughes, Spencer, Brown, Cullen, and McKay to the fictional explorations of Toomer, Hurston, Fisher, Larsen, Fauset, and Thurman to the inspiration supplied by blues, jazz, and folklore of the African American tradition. Journals connected with the movement, the contributions of interested patrons, such as Van Vechten, Cunard, and the Spingarns, and the relations of the Harlem Renaissance to other contemporary American literary currents (realism, naturalism, and modernism.)
AFROAM 691F. Black Political Struggle and the American Political System, 4 credits
Professor Losier
Thursdays 1:00-3:30 pm, NAH 302
An historical examination of the black political struggle for equality and citizenship in America—the obstacles placed in the path of that struggle by the American political system in general and by the American state in particular—and the countless ways in which racial politics have shaped the system that is called American Democracy.
AFROAM 701-702. Major Works in Afro-American Studies I and II
*Open to Afro-American Studies M.A. and Ph.D. Students Only.