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 5:30-6:45 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 117. Survey of Afro-American Literature I, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Professor Meeks
TuTh 10:00-11:15 am
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.
AFROAM 118. Survey of Afro-American Literature II, 4 credits (AL,DU) *Lecture On-Line
Professor Jimoh
MW 11:15-12:05 pm Discussion Sections: F 12:20 or F 1:25 *Discussions - In Person
Introductory level survey of Afro-American literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the present, including Du Bois, Hughes, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Walker, Morrison, Baraka and Lorde.
AFROAM 132. African-American History: 1619-1860, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor David Swiderski
MWF 10:10-11:00 am, Rm 03, New Africa House Theatre
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 133. African-American History: Civil War-1954, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor Losier
MW 2:30-3:20 Discussion Sections: F 1:25 or F 2:30
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.
AFROAM 151. Literature & Culture, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Professor Rusert
MW 10:10-11:00 am Discussion Sections: F 9:05 or F 10:10 am
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.
AFROAM 151. Literature & Culture: Black Speculative Futures , 4 credits (AL,DU)
*On-line Only: Register Here
Instructor: Andrew Brooks
From the freedom dreams encoded in spirituals and work songs to Janelle Monáe’s multimedia creations, this course examines how Black creator-activists have used speculative and spiritual practices to resist dehumanization and envision new ways of living, building community, and fighting for liberation. Grounded in the specific historical, cultural, and political moments in which these works emerged, we explore the expansive ways Black artists have imagined liberation and alternative ways of being.
The course begins in the late 18th century, uncovering speculative and spiritual dimensions in spirituals, work songs, and early writings from the era of slavery through emancipation. We trace these imaginative practices through Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, where cultural critiques of white supremacist nostalgia and speculative interrogations of race and history take center stage. Moving into the New Negro movement, we explore its embrace of futurism and cultural identity before transitioning into the radical imaginings of the Black Arts Movement and the speculative explosion of Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative Arts Movement in the late 20th and 21st centuries.
Throughout the course, we consider speculative fiction genres such as science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate histories, alongside spiritual traditions rooted in African diasporic cosmologies and resistance. By examining storytelling, music, and film through themes like utopia/dystopia, the blending of technology and mythology, alternate histories, and the intersections of race, gender, class, and futurity, we investigate how these works critique oppressive systems and imagine just and liberated futures.
This interdisciplinary approach emphasizes how Black creators have reimagined the world and reshaped our understanding of liberation through their artistic, intellectual, and spiritual visions. Possible figures include Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Charles W. Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, Sun Ra, P-Funk, Gil Scott-Heron, Julie Dash, Drexciya, N.K. Jemisin, P. Djèlí Clark, Jordan Peele, Flying Lotus, Janelle Monáe, among others.
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 into the twenty-first century. Literature and history will be examined alongside documentaries and footage of famous performers in conjunction to their historical period and the cultural and political events of the time. The Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement, post-Civil Rights era, and the Black Lives Matter Movement will encompass the scope of this course. Therefore, we will be reading works from Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, among others, while surveying the varied styles, productions, and receptions of artists such as Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Odetta, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Curtis Mayfield, Betty Davis, Donna Summer, Prince, Bad Brains, Beyonce, and many more. In addition, the course will consider the diasporic reaches of “Afro-Latinidad” (bachata, salsa, etc.) and Caribbean influences such as reggae and dub.
AFROAM 161. Introduction to Black Politics, 4 credits (SB,DU)
Professor Swiderski
MWF 11:15-12:05 pm, Rm 03, New Africa House Theatre
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)
Instructor: Jordón Crawford
TuTh 4:00-5:15 pm
What is the connection between art and activism? Who belongs to the “grassroots” of grassroots movements? And what does it mean for us today? This course will move carefully and intentionally through the mid-20th century to today, outlining prominent social and political movements from each decade and the creative/cultural work that reflected, complicated, or otherwise accompanied them. Beginning with the Civil Rights Movement and culminating in an exploration of contemporary movements, we will necessarily combine elements of history, politics, literature, and performance studies in order to better understand the myriad and multimodal ways activist movements have attempted to achieve their long-term visions for a more just, equitable, and antiracist society. One of these ways includes the creation and dissemination of art. In so doing, we will situate ourselves within the “story” of this history and explore together how the art we consume, critique, and contribute may be an active part of our own time’s grassroots activism.
AFROAM 170. The Grassroots Experience in American Life and Culture I, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Instructor: Elise Barnett
MW 5:30-6:45 pm
What is the connection between art and activism? Who belongs to the “grassroots” of grassroots movements? And what does it mean for us today? This course will move carefully and intentionally through the mid-20th century to today, outlining prominent social and political movements from each decade and the creative/cultural work that reflected, complicated, or otherwise accompanied them. Beginning with the Civil Rights Movement and culminating in an exploration of contemporary movements, we will necessarily combine elements of history, politics, literature, and performance studies in order to better understand the myriad and multimodal ways activist movements have attempted to achieve their long-term visions for a more just, equitable, and antiracist society. One of these ways includes the creation and dissemination of art. In so doing, we will situate ourselves within the “story” of this history and explore together how the art we consume, critique, and contribute may be an active part of our own time’s grassroots activism.
AFROAM 234. The Harlem Renaissance, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Professor Davis
MW 4:00-5:15 pm
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)
Instructor: Dominic Braswell
TuTh 10:00-11:15 am
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 264. Foundations of Black Education in the U.S., 4 credits (HS,DU)
Professor Shabazz
TuTh 11:30-12:45 pm
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.
AFROAM 290STB. Intro to Hip Hop Studies: the Blacker the Berry, the Sweeter the Juice, 3 credits
Professor Torres
Wednesdays 11:15 am - 1:45 pm
Hip Hop Studies is a field that began with Tricia Rose’s Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994). Since then, a litany of scholars have observed hip hop culture as an academic source of inquiry, epistemology, and pedagogy. This course surveys hip hop cultural history and politics, major popular songs, subgenres (gangsta rap, afrobeats), dance, and art (graffiti), through the works of Hip Hop Studies scholars and the music’s major contributors. Beginning with its early roots in the late 1970s, this course examines how hip hop culture has impacted the globe through its celebration of Black life and how its music has given voice to the voiceless across the world.
AFROAM 293C. Race, Sexuality, and the Law in Early America, 3 credits
Professor Kerth
MW 2:30-3:45 pm
What is race? What is sexuality? How did early American history shape the legal structures that would come to define racial and sexual identities and possibilities? And how do modern American ideas about race and sexuality reflect historical legal conflations of race and sexuality? In this course, students will examine how African, European, and Native American ideas about race and sexuality influenced the development of colonial, early republican, and antebellum America, with a special focus on the evolution of American legal frameworks undergirding racial and sexual hierarchies. Topics covered include initial encounters between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans; the birth and evolution of racial slavery; interracial sex and marriage; citizenship and belonging; and legal and extra-legal racial and sexual violence.
AFROAM 293J. Black Women, Representation and Power in Africa and the African Diaspora, 3 credits
Professor Covington-Ward
TuTh 1:00-2:15 pm
This course explores histories, cultures, and contemporary socio-political issues of relevance to women of African descent across the geographical spectrum of the Pan-African world: Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and North America. What representations and stereotypes do others have of Black women? And how do Black women challenge misrepresentations and define themselves? The course begins by exploring ideas of feminism, black feminism, and womanism/Africana womanism as relevant ideologies for women of African descent. The course then uses novels, ethnographies, journal articles, and videos from Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, the United States and other countries to examine issues of identity, cultural representation, and self-definition for Black women. Topics covered include colonialism, sex tourism, skin-bleaching and colorism, intersectionality and the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, stereotypes of Black women, reproductive justice and Black maternal mortality, Black girl’s games, and women in Hip-Hop, etc.
AFROAM 326. Black Women in U.S. History, 4 credits (HS,DU)
Instructor: Olivia Haynes
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 345. Southern Literature, 4 credits (AL,DU)
Instructor: Leticía Silva
TuTh 5:30-6:45 pm
This course explores Southern Black Literature through a sampling of literary productions from the U.S. South and the Global South (especially Brazil). We will prioritize texts and forms sprouting up from cultures of resistance to the many violences of racism, paying attention to representations of the Black body within such materials. In addition to exploring novels, narratives, and poetry, we will work with visual arts, music, films, and other cultural and historical sources.
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.
GRADUATE
AFROAM 630. Critical Race Theories, 4 credits *On-line
Professor Jimoh
Thursdays 4:00-6:30 pm
Participants in this seminar, Critical Race Theories, will examine the general foundational ideas and concepts shaping today’s now proliferating scholarly enquiries that operate under the term critical race theories. While the basis for today’s critical race theories developed from Critical Legal Studies and Critical Race Theory in legal scholarship, many scholars from a variety of disciplines have transformed for their own contexts the insights that have informed legal scholarship in this area. An understanding of the entrenched racial structures in the United States and their basis in the social contract informing much of Western culture is especially useful for reading and analyzing a substantial portion of African American literature. Seminar participants will read early documents (The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America The Constitution of the United States of America, The Bill of Rights, Emancipation Proclamation, the Reconstruction Amendments) together with texts by historical figures, philosophers, and others who have shaped or have responded to systems of race in the United States (Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Banneker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others) texts on theories of race (Smedley, Frederickson, Eze and others), and legal as well as literary, political, and philosophical critical race theorists (Bell, Crenshaw, Gotanda, Austin, Mills, Baldwin, Neal, Fuller, Du Bois, among others).
AFROAM 691B. Black Workers in the U.S. Since Emancipation, 4 credits
Professor Shabazz
Thursdays 1:00-3:30 pm, NAH 302
This seminar will attempt to accomplish two goals; to examine some of the significant issues in the history of African American workers since Emancipation and to introduce you to some of the most recent scholarship addressing those issues. We will begin with general studies of the history of capitalism in the U.S. and Black workers then proceed to a study of 1) The role of Black labor in several industries, 2) Black woman as workers, 3) Black labor and the Black power movement and 4) Herbert Hill’s critiques of organized labor and the labor history establishment.
AFROAM 691L. The Black Arts Movement, 4 credits
Professor Smethurst
Tuesdays 1:00-3:30 pm, NAH 302
This course will examine the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s in its many manifestations, including literature, theater, music, and the visual arts. A particular focus of the course will be the ways in which domestic and international political movements (e.g., Civil Rights, Black Power, and anti-colonial) intersected with Black Arts, deeply influencing the formal and thematic choices of African American artists. Much attention will be paid to the distinctive regional variations of the movement as well as to the ways in which Black Arts fundamentally changed how art is produced and received in the United States.
AFROAM 692Q. African Diaspora Studies: Introduction to Concepts and Historiography
Professor Lao-Montes
Wednesdays 12:00-2:30 pm, NAH 302
This course will offer an introduction to 1) key concepts and definitions e.g. diaspora, Pan-Africanism, Afro-centrism, etc. 2) the classic works in the field. 3) major trends in contemporary scholarship.
We will be reading a selection of works discussing the contours and history of the field as well as examples of recent scholarship. Two papers on major themes will be required. This course is required for the Graduate Certificate in African Diaspora Studies and is open both to students pursuing the certificate and to graduate students with a general interest in the subject.
AFROAM 701-702. Major Works in Afro-American Studies II
MW 4:00-6:30 p.m. *Open to Afro-American Studies M.A. and Ph.D. Students Only.