| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| AFAM 40A | AFRICAN AMERICAN I | MURILLO, J. | This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to important historical, cultural, literary, and political issues concerning African Americans. Through critical readings of literary, historical, and critical texts, this course provides an overview of the historical and cultural experiences of African Americans from before the 15th century to today. Beginning with a conceptual overview of slavery as a distinct relation of domination, students will proceed to examine the emergence of modern racial slavery and the retrenchment of racial oppression following the formal abolition of slavery. With special focus on Black feminist, queer, and trans* activism, the course will explore struggles for social transformation and resistance by African Americans in the United States. |
| AFAM 113 | BLACK TV & CHILL | MURILLO, J. | From The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, A Different World, Martin, and Chappelle’s Show to Dear White People, Atlanta, Blackish, and Insecure, the cultural singularities of Black television shows are inescapable, creative phenomena. In profound ways, they entertain us, tether us to one another, and facilitate critical conversations about Black existence in an antiblack world. In this course, we will sit, chill, and dialogue with these shows in order to consider how and why they work in these ways, thinking especially critically about the nature of our enjoyment and its relation to their critical potential to shape our everyday discourse. |
| AFAM 134B | CARIB HISTORY II | JAMES, W. | Post-emancipation and anti-colonial struggles ending with political independence for most of the region. Examines social, political, economic, cultural dimensions of post-emancipation period, including large-scale migration to Central America, the U.S., and Britain; the region's global cultural and political contribution. |
| AFAM 138 | BLK WOMXN VIOLENCE | MILLWARD, J. | Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's may because of our need as human persons for autonomy. This may seem so obvious as to sound simplistic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever considered our specific oppression as a priority or worked seriously for the ending of that oppression. --The Combahee River Collective Statement, 1974 Yes, and the body has memory. The physical carriage hauls more than its weight. The body is the threshold across which each objectionable call passes into consciousness—all the unintimidated, unblinking, and unflappable resilience does not erase the moments lived through... Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric History, like trauma, is never simply one's own...History is precisely the way we are implicated in each other's trauma. --Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History The above three quotes serve as narrative and witness to the course material that we will be studying. Black womxn are often in defense of themselves, their bodies bare this history, and though they are often in defense of themselves, others are complicit and implicated in their trauma. |
| AFAM 144 | RACE&ART OF WRITING | WILDERSON, F. | African American Studies 144, "Race & the Art of Writing,” is a literature and writing class. While being introduced to seminal texts in the Black literary tradition, as well as to narrative theory, students will develop creative writing skills and produce a short piece of fiction of creative nonfiction by the end of the quarter. Admission by instructor approval. Guidelines will be available soon. |
| AFAM 162W | BLACK PROTEST TRADN | WILDERSON, F. | History and discourses of the black protest tradition. Traces emergence of black protest against racial slavery and white supremacy from the early colonial period to present and the complex elaboration of identity politics within black communities in the twentieth century. Prerequisite: Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement. Restriction: Upper-division students only. |