| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
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| AFAM 40C | AFRICAN AMERICN III | DAULATZAI, S. | This course offers a critical introduction to theories of blackness as social position, historical legacy, and/or cultural identity in the Western hemisphere, with particular emphasis on such developments in the British North American colonies and the United States. We will trace the emergence of blackness as a term of collective identity, a principle of social organization, and banner of political mobilization in the writings of various black intellectuals, activists, and artists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. More importantly, we will discuss the relationship of this critical theoretical activity to the material contexts of racial oppression and movements of resistance.
In this vein, we consider the impact of, first and foremost, the transatlantic enslavement of Africans and the vast system of plantation slavery throughout the Americas, but also, the international abolitionist movement and the Civil War, Jim Crow segregation and the high tide of lynching, and the era of the modern Civil Rights Movement and its aftermath in the age of globalization. Though there will be a clear focus on the specificities of racial formation in the United States and the centrality of anti-black racism therein, we will also think comparatively about other regions of racial inequality and always with an eye to the construction of the global racial hierarchy that has come to dominance over this centuries-long period. We will read for quality not quantity and with a premium on engaged class participation and well-informed discussion. Several short writing assignments will round out the engagement with course materials. |
| AFAM 110 | ASAM & AFAM RELATNS | FUJITA-RONY, D. | This course will explore the comparative and often connected history of Asian Americans and African Americans in the United States, with particular emphasis on the contemporary era. Themes will include labor, economic systems, political mobilization, and the struggle for civil rights and cultural expression. Requirements will be a 5-page paper, midterm, final exam, and engaged class participation. |
| AFAM 112B | T. MORRISON'S WORK | KEIZER, A. | Toni Morrison as Novelist and Critic
In an interview from the early 1980s, Toni Morrison states that “narrative remains the best way to learn anything . . . so I continue with narrative form.” The aim of this course is to explore, in detail, Morrison's uses of narrative form and figurative language. We will read most of Morrison's novels, examining the development of themes and formal strategies. We will also read Morrison's literary and cultural criticism, paying particular attention to the ways in which issues in the novels are addressed in these non-fiction works and to the different ways in which Morrison’s fiction and her criticism have been received. Among the questions we will attempt to answer by reading the novels and criticism together is the question of how narrative might function as a form of theory. Another ongoing concern of the class will be to situate Morrison's work in the African American and American literary traditions. |
| AFAM 116 | AFRCN WOMEN WRITERS | KATRAK, K. | This course undertakes a study of women writers in the English language from different nations on the African continent. We discuss the naming of this field as "postcolonial" or "third world"
given the history of British colonization in parts of Africa such as Nigeria, Ghana, among others. Although our focus is on texts by African women writers, we analyze similarities and differences among women writers from other parts of the colonized world such as the Caribbean--for instance, commonalities and differences in British colonial practices; the impact of colonial(ist) educational systems on oral traditions and modern written forms. We explore "feminisms" appropriate to the "third world". African women writers give imaginative expression to the multiple layers of oppression facing their protagonists such as patriarchy and colonialism, the traps of "tradition", female sexuality and socialization, "tradition" and "westernization." We study the dynamics of race, class, gender, ethnicity as these have evolved through the impact of colonialism and into postcolonial times. We study literary texts by Ama Ata Aidoo, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Bessie Head, among others. |
| AFAM 144 | AFRO-FUTURISM II | JENKINS JR., U. | This course will explore various African-American artistic engagements with cultural and philosophical traditions that have evolved into the development of an Afro-futurist aesthetic. An examination of how linkage to ancient African belief systems and science and technology has emerged into an artistic expression of freedom. The course will examine a variety of disciplines in the arts: literature, music and the visual arts; with an emphasis based upon the social implications African-American Woman.
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| AFAM 154 | BLKS US FOREIGN POL | WILLOUGHBY-HER, T. | This course is concerned with these primary questions: What black political organizations have been concerned with internationalism? What black political attitudes, philosophies, and ideologies about internationalism have shaped discourse in American foreign policy? How have the legacy of pan-Africanism and diasporic thinking influenced Black political ideologies about the nation-state, citizenship, migration, and identity? What role have black political scientists played in shaping the debates on racial democracy and comparative racial politics? What role has race and culture played in the making of the international system and what constitutes foreign affairs, globalization, and international relations? |
| AFAM 156 | S AFRCN SOCIAL IDS | WILLOUGHBY-HER, T. | Political thought in post-apartheid South Africa must reconcile with the legacy and stamp of race and racism. But, how to do this in a moment when history is being questioned as purely narrative lacking any particular moral or ethical or normative valence or implications? Indeed, the register of post-raciality given the insistence of non-racialism in South African political thought and the meanings of post-racialism globally complicate matters even further. In the late1990s a group of scholars began to research and talk about the new politics of identity construction in South Africa in the post-apartheid era. With an eye toward the impact of the post-apartheid era on other racial democracies and theorists’ ability to accommodate new identity formation and transnational identity this course will look at the collected materials that emerged from these scholars. This is a Comparative Political Thought course that will pay close attention to concepts such as: history and memory, economic justice, youth culture, demilitarization, affirmative action, the new “black middle class,” African Renaissance, The Rainbow Nation, the legacies of displacement, and the so-called Colored and Indian communities.
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| AFAM 158 | RACE & ETHNICITY II | HUIE, K. | Race and Ethnicity in America III is part of the Reaffirming Ethnic Awareness and Community Harmony Program. It is part three of a three - quarter course designed to critically examine the role of diversity and multiculturalism in higher education. The course will examine text focusing on discourse on race, power, and privilege. There will also be historical references that focus on the “building” of the United States as a nation as well as higher education literature that deal with class, ethnicity, and culture.
The Class will be divided into 4 parts: (1) Theories on Race and Ethnicity; (2) Power, Privilege, and Culture (3) Presentation, Facilitation, and Public Speaking Skills (4) Multiculturalism and Higher Education
In this course, students will engage in intellectual and practical learning of leadership skills and concepts through class discussion, readings, community speakers, lectures, films, exercises, group projects, and community field studies. Through these activities, students will improve upon leadership skills and develop a critical analysis of privilege as it relates to the dimensions of culture and diversity. |
| AFAM 162W | BLACK PROTEST TRADN | WILDERSON, F. | An upper-division undergraduate course. Students will be introduced to the history and discourse of the black protest tradition, from the earliest slave revolts to the Los Angeles uprising. This course will race the emergence of black protest against racial slavery and white supremacy during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the complex elaboration of identity politics within black communities during the twentieth century. Some of the texts students will be required to analyze include the protest literature of Ida B. Wells, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X., Martin Luther King, Jr., Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, and James Baldwin. A special emphasis will be placed on the role of music in black protest tradition, examining negro spirituals, the blues, reggae, and hip hop specifically. Writing assignments will consist of three short papers (approximately 5 pages each) as well as a midterm and a final project. This class will serve as the upper division writing requirement for the major in African-American Studies. |