| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| AFAM 40B | AFRICAN AMERICAN II | MURILLO, J. | This lecture course is an introductory investigation into the question of race and the earthshattering impact this invention has had on Black life and death in the antiblack world. Our journey winds through poetry, literature, historical analysis, and critical theory in order to piece together a vision of the mechanics, stakes, and consequences of the invention of Blackness in the modern world. In doing so, we contend with the rudimentary and oft-deployed remark that “race is man-made” or “race is invented,” most often issued as reasons to take race, and more specifically Blackness, less seriously—i.e. they are “made-up,” so we merely need look away, or disbelieve, or think and imagine ‘otherwise.’ Our investigation begins and moves based on the premise that, in fact, this “made-up” or “conjured” quality of this invention make it more malleable, more unwieldy, and deadlier, and, instead demands that we take its fictions far more seriously than we do, for in them writhe the truths of the modern world as we know it. |
| AFAM 113 | BLACK HISTORY FILM | PAYTON, P. | This course will provide an introduction to the history of “Black film.” The term “Black film” is complex due to the fact that throughout film history it has functioned to group films of all genres together into one non-discriminative category. Consequently, it has been defined in various ways including films with predominantly Black casts, films made by Black directors, and/or films deemed “authentic” to the Black experience. This course will track these changing definitions by looking at a wide range of films that have been included within the category of “Black film.” We will also consider how the socio-political climate impacts and/or is shaped by Black popular culture. Furthermore, during this quarter we will explore how authorship, performative agency, and spectatorship have worked, both in partnership with and in opposition to, claims of what defines a “Black film.” |
| AFAM 137 | AFRICAN DIASPORA | MILLER, R. | The concept of Diaspora has played a central role in guiding the identity formations of people of African descent in the Americas, as well as the social, political, and religious movements they constructed from the period of trans-Atlantic slavery to the present. Notions of an African Diaspora have been theorized, articulated, and utilized by Black intellectuals, organizers, and everyday people in a myriad of ways. This class seeks to historicize and examine the idea of an African Diaspora and the movements for Black self-determination it helped to inspire. We will begin by discussing varying theorizations of Diaspora, along with major debates regarding historical, cultural, and political connections between people of African descent around the world and those on the African continent. Subsequent course readings will be organized around several themes including: pan-Africanism, the political economy of the trans-Atlantic and trans-Saharan slave trades, African retentions and transferals, Black religious nationalism, Africans in Asia and the Middle East, Black resistance and Black Power, recent African immigration, and competing notions/meanings of Blackness. All these topics will be examined within a transnational context and with special consideration for the dynamics of class, gender, and national identity. |
| AFAM 138 | IDEA OF AMERICA II | CHANDLER, N. | The Very Idea of America II – Historiography, Literature, Political Philosophy – 1808-1915 Employing a multidisciplinary approach to the understanding of American society, culture and history, from the 15th century to the early 20th century, this course will provide a new introduction to the very idea and the founding history of America. With touchstone attention to Asia (notably India, Japan, and China) in the idea of America, the diverse sources of its people, African, European, Native American, and more, this course takes the history of matters African American as a central guide. The aftermath of the American Reconstruction, as itself the aftermath of the great modern revolutions, is the central reference. The matter of "citizenship" is a key problematic. The course aims to cultivate a perspective that is at once historical and “cultural,” and thus also comparative, in all of its practices. |
| AFAM 156 | AFRICAN FEMINISMS | WILLOUGHBY-HER, T. | Introduce students to concepts of gender and feminist activist movements generated and led by and about women and gender outlaws from the African continent and the context in which rebellion, social protest and transformation occurs. We will explore a range of texts: experimental writing, poetry collections, fiction, prison memoirs, social commentaries, films, and cultural and social histories. We will engage heavily (almost exclusively) on South African materials by poet Koleka Putuma; filmmakers Bev Ditsie and Rehad Desai; photographer Zanele Muholi; feminist cultural studies scholars Pumla Gqola & Devarakshanam (Betty) Govinden; and freedom fighter and activist sociologist Fatima Meer. Prominent exceptions include Ghanaian classic, Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo; Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène’s tour de force Black Girl; and British Zimbabwean director and screenwriter, Ingrid Sinclair’s prized Flame. |
| AFAM 198 | DIRECTED GRP/STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 198 | DIRECTED GRP/STUDY | RAMOS, C. | |
| AFAM 198 | DIRECTED GRP/STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 198 | DIRECTED GRP/STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 198 | DIRECTED GRP/STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 198 | DIRECTED GRP/STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 198 | DIRECTED GRP/STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 199 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 199 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 199 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 199 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 199 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 199 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | STAFF | |
| AFAM 399 | UNIVERSITY TEACHING | MURILLO, J. |