| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
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| AFAM 40B | AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES II | SEXTON, J. | This course offers a critical introduction to the history of modern racial thinking in Western society, with particular emphasis on developments of the British North American colonies and the United States. |
| AFAM 50 | CONCEPT OF CULTURE IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA | CHANDLER, N | Same as Anthropology 89 and Sociol 69. This course will consider the ways in which the concept of culture has been deployed in discourses concerning the African Diaspora. The course will have three aspects: (1) a general introduction to the concept of culture in the human sciences, with particular reference to its formalization near the beginning of the 20th century; (2) the selected study of one or more key debates in the study of African Americans in the U.S. (such as debates about the originality or derivation of the social practices among African Americans), with some reference to other Disapora contexts (such as Jamaica, Cuba, Martinique, Brazil, Suriname, England, or France, etc.); (3) the relevance of the history encoded in the first two aspects to the study of the most contemporary questions of cultural identity and practice on a global scale in the era of a new globalization that has taken decisive form early in the 21st century. |
| AFAM 112B | T. MORRISON'S WORK | KEIZER, A. | Same as Eng 105 and WS 170. 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. 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. Course requirements: two short essays (2-4 pages), the second of which will be the midterm, and a take-home final exam. |
| AFAM 117 | ASAM & AFAM RELATNS | FUJITA-RONY, D. | Same as ASAM 167 and Hist. 152. 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, community formation, political mobilization, and cultural expression. Requirements will be a 5-page paper, midterm, final exam, and engaged class participation. |
| AFAM 118 | MUSLIM CINEMA | DAULATZAI, S. | Same as F&M 190. Using film and documentary, theory and criticism, this course will explore the complex world of Muslim diasporas forged through the overarching nexus of colonialism, slavery and empire. In exploring the captivating diversity of Muslims lives, this course will situate a range of experiences within the rubrics of race, class, gender, sexuality and nationhood. With cinema and visual culture as our guide, our exploration of Muslim diasporas will provide a platform with which to interrogate a broad range of issues and debates, including the formation of national identities, race and the colonial encounter, gender and imperialism, aesthetics and power, and resistance and immigration. Films may include Malcolm X, The Siege, The Battle of Algiers, La Haine, Paradise Now, Man Push Cart, Four Lions, Incendies, Days of Glory, amongst others. |
| AFAM 128 | QUEER LIVES&KNOWLDG | SCHEPER, J | Same as WomnSt 157B. In this course, students explore the elaboration of non-normative sexual and gender identities, practices, and communities from the 19th century to the present. How does the queer past inform and shape the queer present and future? In the nineteenth century, categories for non-normative sexualities emerged from changing legal-medical discourses and popular culture representations that linked discourses of sexual pathologization to scientific racism and colonial spectacles of the body. How have these ways of knowing and seeing shaped twenty-first century debates, characterized by recent provocative headlines such as “Gay is the New Black.” Focusing on scholarship by queer theorists of color (Black Queer Studies Reader; Jose Munoz’s Disidentifications), this course foregrounds thinking about sexuality and gender in relation to histories of colonialism, slavery, Jim Crow, diaspora, and nationalism. This course examines the uses of history by queer subjects to produce queer responses that perform across differences of race, class, nation, and gender, and produce ways of knowing that resist pathologizing practices in order to imagine queer futures. How do ideas of “ephemera” and “disappearance”; “publics” and “counter-publics” interact with impulses to “archive” and “perform” racialized queer experience? Exploring the concept of queer cultural recycling, this course foregrounds visual and cultural production and the interplay of queer theory and practice across various cultural, political, and artistic mediums and contexts.
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| AFAM 138 | CMPRTV SLAVE REBELN | MILLWARD, J. | Same as Hist. 150. This course investigates slave resistance, agency, and revolution during key “slave rebellions” in the Atlantic World. The main course objective is to provide students with an overview of classic and more recent scholarship on topics presented in the course. Of particular importance is the relationship between individual vs. community resistance, and forms of resistance available to slaves based upon their locale, gender and status in the enslaved community. Students will work to isolate criteria as to what makes a "successful" slave rebellion. We will approach slave resistance and rebellion from a Diasporic perspective.
Students will develop critical and analytical skills by doing oral and written assignments, some of which will be comparative in nature. The reading assignments promise to provide students with a theoretical overview of classic debates in African American history/studies such as class conflict, gendered experiences and collective action. This class is designed for students who have taken other African American Studies or History courses as well as those who have a general interest in the course material.
(Pre-1800 US Course) |
| AFAM 143 | BLACK POPULAR MUSIC | MUTERE, M | This course will examine Black Popular Music of the post-civil rights era through the cultural, historical, and philosophical matrix of African American oral traditions. Within this culturally-conscious aesthetic context, students will consider genres such as rock, soul, funk, and hip-hop as well as the performativity, delivery mechanisms and style of specific artists within those genres. Students will also reflect on the social significance of Black Popular Music expression e.g. how it cultivates the popular imagination; what trends are being reflected and/or created internally and cross-culturally; and what traditional and communication frameworks undergird and inform its modern-day expression and mission? |
| AFAM 143 | CREATIVE MUSIC COLLECTIVES | MITCHELL, N | Same as Music 145. Creative Music Collectives is an entry-way for students to gain an in-depth understanding of the history of improvised music collectives in the U.S. and abroad, while analyzing their relationship to jazz, the Civil Rights Movement, American culture and contemporary music of the 20th and 21st century. Students will explore the questions: What is creative and improvised music? How and why did these groups form? Who are key musicians from each group and what aesthetic and music developments has each contributed? What were their innovative musical concepts? How do these groups relate to African American culture, jazz and contemporary music? How did these groups operate within their community and in the international context?
In the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, a few unique and globally influential improved music collectives formed in the U.S.--The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA), Black Artists Group (BAG) and the Jazz Composer’s Guild. Each group represented an approach toward self-determination, where musicians worked cooperatively to meet artistic goals, strengthen community and express a bold new artistic aesthetic in African American art. Each emerged from the avant garde movement in jazz. These creative music collectives have played an important and interesting role in American experimental music and jazz history, through contributions of music aesthetics and compositional ideas, improvisational techniques, music notation and more. In parallel and in response to this American movement, creative music collectives emerged across the globe, and increased the impact on contemporary music of the 20th and 21st century.
Students will be introduced to the music and ideas of Muhal Richard Abrams, Horace Tapscott, Sun Ra, Bill Dixon, Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, ICP Orchestra, Now Orchestra and more. Students will also explore the model of musical community in terms of mentorship, mutual support and artistic development and view these groups in international context: their representation of African American cultural diversity, their relationship to jazz and creative music in the U.S., and the historical dialogue between American and European experimental music.
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| AFAM 153 | AF AM PSYCHOLOGY | PARHAM, T. | The course will begin with a historical overview of the development of the discipline of African psychology and the African American frame of reference. Lecture, readings, and class discussions will begin with a concept called "building for eternity" and continue with topic areas including, but not limited to: spirituality, identity development, coping with the dynamics of oppression, psychological assessment, issues in education, Black family and male/female relationships, African American mental health and mental health illness, criminal justice and juvenile offenders, and the role of the Black psychologist in their community. |
| AFAM 158 | AFAM RELIGIONS | NELSON, J. | Same as Rel Std 100. This course examines the varieties of beliefs and practices in African American religious history including African religions in the Americas, slave religion, the development of independent black churches, the rise of African-American new religious movements such as the Nation of Islam, the Civil Rights Movement, and the role of black religion in politics. |
| AFAM 158 | CRITICAL RACE THEORY | HAN, S. | Same as Crm/Law C100 and WS 187. The legal archive is a rich genealogical ground for understanding the social construction of race in the United States. We can discern there the production of racial subjects, the articulation of racial meaning and power, and the dynamic forces of racial politics in American culture. Furthermore, a theory of racialization developed from the legal archive allows us to centralize what has been a foundational tension in American democracy: between the history of race and the ideal of liberalism. Liberal principles (e.g., civil rights and equal protection) and their attendant policies (e.g., affirmative action, naturalization and national security) are perpetually contradicted by the specter of race.
In the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, the academic field of Critical Race Theory identified the above problematic and began developing what is now a rich body of work, work that will guide our exploration of the American legal archive. This course is an introduction to Critical Race Theory – contextualizing its concepts, identifying its key methodologies, and applying each to the legal archive. The larger theoretical approach to race and law emerging from the course enables us to think critically about the possibilities and pitfalls of racial politics in the age of colorblindness. |
| AFAM 158 | DU BOIS AND THE FOUNDATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES I | CHANDLER, N | Same as Sociol 169. Divided into two parts and taught over two quarters, this course reexamines the earliest systematic program for the study of matters African American in the United States, that is, the project proposed by W. E. B. Du Bois from the late 1890s through to the First World War. The scale of Du Bois’s project is seldom fully grasped. Yet, it was pioneering, not only for African American studies, but for the human sciences in general, in that it placed at its center historical formations as the object of study and interpretation as the signal method. It was parallel to the work of other path-breaking figures (such as Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Edmund Husserl, Sigmund Freud, or Franz Boas). Taking its grounding in essential early essays by Du Bois, the course places The Philadelphia Negro (1899) at its center for the first term and The Souls of Black Folk (1903) as the pivotal reference of the second term. Appropriate secondary works will also be considered. Upon completion of this course the student will have a deeper understanding of the origin and core problematic of African American studies, as well as a more fundamental understanding of the basic concepts of the human sciences and how they work in the study of a concrete historical context (useful, for example, in public policy work and advanced social research), along with a deep introduction to one of the most gifted and influential thinkers of the twentieth century. |