| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|
| AFAM 40A | AFRICAN AMERICAN I | COOKS CUMBO, B. | An undergraduate survey course. Students will be introduced to the main contours of the African-American experience, from the importation of Africans into the Americas to the present. This course will focus on the unique expressions of African-American society and culture. Some of the required reading will include Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, W.E.B. DuBois Souls of Black Folks, the poems of Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brookes, the speeches and writings of Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, black feminist manifestoes, and the novels of Toni Morrison. Students will also be required to take a midterm and a final examination. This course is the first in a three-part series for the Program in African-American Studies. |
| AFAM 111B | AFAM ART: 1930-PRES | COOKS CUMBO, B. | In this course students will study artworks created by African Americans beginning chronologically with government sponsored art programs in the 1930s and ending with contemporary art of the twenty-first century. |
| AFAM 112B | AF/AMER WOMEN WRTRS | KEIZER, A. | The explosion of African American women's literature that began in the early 1970s came as a surprise to many. Yet the ground for this contemporary work had been prepared by a tradition of black women's literary production extending back into the eighteenth century. This course will examine fiction, poetry, and drama by twentieth-century black women writers, with particular attention to the influence of nineteenth-century concerns upon more recent works. Through our close readings, we will trace thematic and stylistic continuities and discontinuities between the texts under study, and we will consider the socio-economic and political factors that established the parameters of African American women's creative expression, including the legacies of slavery, stereotypes of black women, sexual violence, and the Civil Rights and feminist movements. We will use critical essays to enhance our analyses of primary texts. Assignments for the course include response papers, a midterm exam, and a final paper. |
| AFAM 118 | FEAR-REBEL SLAVES | STAFF | The colonial relationship set up in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610) has been used as a basis for a body of hemispheric American anti-colonial and anti-racist work, and the figure of Caliban as a point of entrance into critical assessments of Caribbean identity in and against colonial and hegemonic powers. In this class we will begin with a critical history of the uses of Caliban as a literary and political figure. We will then put this figure in conversation with histories of radical anti-slavery (the actions, violent or not, of the enslaved to resist their condition), to push the limits of this trope. How has radical anti-slavery been remembered, by whom and for whom? How have textual representations been used to mobilize people into action? Can the relationship and tensions set up in the comic Shakespearian drama help us to understand the fear and anger that is expressed in these texts? Caliban, as a trope, incorporates colonialism and difference dating back to ‘conquest’ and ‘discovery,’ the shock of the European’s effect in the Americas, and of the realization of the Americas on the Europe. In his transformations and reappropriations over the following centuries, and especially in the 20th century, Caliban is a multi-hemispheric, interdisciplinary figure, and has been both imposed by oppressive entities and appropriated by subaltern dissidents. |
| AFAM 124 | RACE AND GENDER | KIM, K. | This course examines the intersections of race and gender in the formation of feminist theory and practice. It looks closely at the ways that prevailing notions of both race and gender are mutually transformed by an intersectional approach and highlights the particularly rich and dynamic contributions of black feminist theorizing for a range of critical topics and issues. To that end, the course pays special attention to the political framing of three major contemporary fronts of feminist movement – domestic violence, sexual assault, reproductive justice – and to the form and substance of the divergent collective efforts that women have organized under these overlapping banners. |
| AFAM 152 | AFRICAN AMER POLTCS | STAFF | This course will introduce students to the works and ideas of a wide range of Black political thinkers including W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Angela Davis, Carter G. Woodson, Frantz Fanon, June Jordan, bell hooks, Michael Dawson, Tupac Shakur, and Michael Eric Dyson. While politically-oriented theories of justice and ethics are important in and of themselves, it is of equal importance to be able to apply these theories to the lived experiences of the individuals and groups who are affected by them. In this course, we will critically review and analyze the theories, methods, goals, and underlying ideological perspectives of these Black thinkers as a means of better understanding contemporary issues facing Black people. These issues include slavery, social class and poverty, the role and purpose of education, gender and sexuality, race and racism, conceptions of political participation, and our strivings for cultural authenticity. We will also work with an expanded conception of what constitutes Black political thought by integrating various cultural products into our studies including essays, poems, videos, films, and songs. By the end of the course, students will have strengthened their research skills by reading, critically interrogating, writing about, and discussing a wide array of works throughout the realm of Black political thought. |
| AFAM 158 | RACE AND CLASS | SEXTON, J. | This course will examine the intersections of race and class for explaining the social, political, and economic position of blacks in the United States, past and present. We will analyze the sources of continued residential segregation and the growing racial wealth gap between blacks and whites in the post-civil rights era. We will also reframe popular notions like "the black middle class" and "the black underclass" from a critical perspective. A broad historical sketch frames the course material, but discussions will focus on contemporary issues including: the rise of mass imprisonment since the 1970s, the dismantling of welfare since the 1980s, the repeal of affirmative action since the 1990s, the continuing devastation of Hurricane Katrina since 2005, and the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis. |
| AFAM 158 | RACE & ETHNICITY I | HUIE, K. | Race and Ethnicity in America I is part of the Reaffirming Ethnic Awareness and Community Harmony Program. It is part one of a three -quarter course designed to critically examine the role of diversity and multiculturalism in higher education, and an opportunity for course participants to explore cultural identity and the various issues of power and privilege that exist within society.
The class will consist of 4 components: (1) Understanding Power, Privilege and Oppression; (2) Understanding the Role of Social Justice and Multiculturalism in Higher Education (3) Cultural Competency and Effective Facilitation Skills (4) Ally Development and Social Change
In this course, students will engage in intellectual and practical learning through class discussion, readings, guest speakers, lectures, films, exercises, group projects, and field studies. Through these activities, students will improve upon leadership skills and develop a critical analysis of difference and privilege as it relates to the dimensions of culture and difference. |
| AFAM 163 | AFAM SLAVERY EXPRNC | MILLWARD, J. | This class is part 1 of a 2 quarter seminar on African American chattel slavery in the United States. Students will be introduced to topics in US slavery through the memories, words, artistic representations, and thoughts of former bondpeople. This course will also include discussion of some fictional works on the enslaved experience. Designed as a research seminar, students will develop crucial skills that will be necessary as they proceed as History major or minors.
For more advanced students, this course provides an opportunity to develop in depth research on a given topic. Students will be expected to produce a research proposal at the end of the quarter outlining the larger research project they will produce in History 192W during Winter quarter. |
| AFAM 163 | NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT | JAMES, W. | |