Africana Studies

The program in Africana Studies provides a cross-culturally and historically comparative framework to study the rich connections and exchanges among African people, their descendants, and the various "new worlds" in which they have made and are making their lives. A particular strength of Carleton's Africana Studies program is the opportunity to explore these issues on the African continent as well as in numerous African diasporas--of varying historical depth--in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Africana Studies combines area studies and ethnic studies foci on the cultural, literary, political, social, and intellectual responses to slavery, colonialism, missionization, and racialization throughout Africa and its many diasporas.

Students can pursue their intellectual interests in Africa and its diasporas through on-campus courses and off-campus studies programs (including programs offered through Carleton's departments of History and Environmental Studies), and through a rich variety of courses in nearly all curricular exploration divisions. Through multidisciplinary training, students are encouraged to develop their analytic, research, and literary skills; they acquire the intellectual tools to critique and correct the distortions and silences about Africans and their descendants in both academic canons and public discourse.

The Africana Studies major thus prepares students for lifetime engagement in scholarship as well as in fields such as law, public policy, education, public health, social work, and the arts. Toward this end, and in addition to coursework, students are encouraged to take advantage of the rich array of speakers, exhibits, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities related to Africans and their diasporas.

Students majoring in Africana Studies create their own program of study by choosing courses in a structured and reflective manner from a variety of disciplinary departments. In developing their program, students should talk to the department about courses that have particularly high African, African Diaspora, and/or African American Studies content. They are particularly encouraged to choose these courses from among the list of relevant courses. Courses marked AFSTPERT can complement the major, but do not count toward the required nine courses plus comprehensive exercise without special permission of the Program Director. Because of the complexities of creating a meaningful program from a wide array of departmental offerings, students interested in majoring should draw up a program of study that has breadth and depth in consultation with the Director of Africana Studies before declaring their major.

Requirements for the Africana Studies Major

Admission to the program will depend upon the acceptance, by the Africana Studies Committee, of a written proposal outlining the student's program of study. Courses cannot double count for two requirements.

  • Interdisciplinary Course (6 credits). Each student must complete one interdisciplinary 6-credit course which, in part, specifically discusses Africana Studies as an interdisciplinary field:
    • AFST 112 Black Revolution on Campus (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 113 Introduction to Africana Studies (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 115 Black Heroism in the Diaspora and Early America
    • AFST 200 The Black Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 230 Black Diaspora, Politics of Place
    • POSC 275 Black Political Thought (not offered in 2021-22)
  • Survey Courses (18 credits). Each student must take three of the following 6-credit courses:
    • AFST 112 Black Revolution on Campus (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 113 Introduction to Africana Studies (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 120 Gender and Sexuality in the African Diaspora (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 210 Historiographies of Slavery
    • AFST 215 Contemporary Theory in Black Studies
    • ARTH 140 African Art and Culture (not offered in 2021-22)
    • ENGL 117 African American Literature (not offered in 2021-22)
    • ENGL 238 African Literature in English
    • HIST 126 African American History II
    • HIST 181 West Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade
    • HIST 183 History of Early West Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 184 Colonial West Africa
    • HIST 284 History, Culture and Commerce Program: Heritage in Africa and Arabia
    • POSC 239 The Poor and the Powerless (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 108 In & Out of Africa: How Transnational Black Lives Matter (not offered in 2021-22)
  • Distribution Courses (30 credits). Each student should take 30 credits of distribution that are essential to Africana Studies. Among these distribution courses, students must choose at least one 6-credit course each from among the three disciplinary groups: Humanistic Inquiry, Social Inquiry and Literary and Artistic Analysis; at least four of the distribution courses must be at the 200-level or above and at least one at the 300-level. The 300-level course should be completed in one of the two disciplines in which the student writes his/her comprehensive exercise; in this course the student must produce a substantial paper or project in Africana Studies. In addition, majors are highly encouraged to take the AMST 345 junior methods course, GWSS 200 (formerly WGST 200), or a methods course in one of the academic disciplines that contribute to Africana Studies. Course cannot double count for two requirements.
    Literary and Artistic Analysis
    • DANC 266 Reading The Dancing Body
    • ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
    • ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice
    • ENGL 238 African Literature in English
    • ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction
    • ENGL 258 Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage (not offered in 2021-22)
    • ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts (not offered in 2021-22)
    • ENGL 352 Toni Morrison: Novelist
    • FREN 245 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2021-22)
    • FREN 308 France and the African Imagination
    • FREN 395 The Mande of West Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 126 America's Music
    • MUSC 130 The History of Jazz (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 131 The Blues From the Delta to Chicago
    • MUSC 140 Ethnomusicology and the World's Music
    • MUSC 232 Golden Age of R & B (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 245 Tradition, Innovation, and Globalization in African Music (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 332 Motown (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 334 Marvin Gaye (not offered in 2021-22)

    Humanistic Inquiry
    • AFST 115 Black Heroism in the Diaspora and Early America
    • AFST 130 Global Islam and Blackness (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 210 Historiographies of Slavery
    • GWSS 265 Black Feminist Thought
    • GWSS 289 Pleasure, Intimacy, Violence
    • HIST 125 African American History I: From Africa to the Civil War
    • HIST 127 The Roaring Twenties & the Rough Thirties in U.S. History (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 181 West Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade
    • HIST 184 Colonial West Africa
    • HIST 214 Sport and the Color Line (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 218 Black Women's History
    • HIST 219 Black Revolutions in the Atlantic World (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 220 From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Black History and/in Film (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 221 Nat Turner, Booker T. Washington, and Fannie Lou Hamer in History and Memory (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 222 Slavery in Film, Literature, and History (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 223 The Presidents and their Slaves (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 225 James Baldwin and Black Lives Matter (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 230 Black Americans and the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 281 War in Modern Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 282 African Diaspora in Arabia
    • HIST 284 History, Culture and Commerce Program: Heritage in Africa and Arabia
    • HIST 285 History, Culture and Commerce Program: Critical Historical Research
    • HIST 382 Slavery & Abolition in Africa and its Diaspora (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 383 Africa's Colonial Legacies (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PHIL 228 Freedom and Alienation in Black American Philosophy
    • PHIL 260 Critical Philosophy of Race
    • PHIL 288 A Survey of Historical Ideas of Race (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PHIL 304 Epistemology and Oppression (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PHIL 305 Frederick Douglass: The Philosophies of a Slave, Citizen, and Diplomat (not offered in 2021-22)
    • RELG 211 Race and Religion: Slavery, Colonialism, and their Afterlives (not offered in 2021-22)
    • RELG 227 Liberation Theologies
    • RELG 262 Islamic Africa (not offered in 2021-22)

    Social Inquiry
    • AFST 112 Black Revolution on Campus (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 200 The Black Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 220 Intersectionality (not offered in 2021-22)
    • EDUC 225 Issues in Urban Education
    • EDUC 245 School Reform: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (not offered in 2021-22)
    • EDUC 338 Multicultural Education
    • HIST 128 Slavery and Universities: Past and Present (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 207 Global Decline of Democracy: Urban Revanchism and Popular Resistance (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 218 Schools, Scholarship and Policy in the United States
    • POSC 239 The Poor and the Powerless (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 266 Urban Political Economy (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 273 Race and Politics in the U.S.
    • POSC 275 Black Political Thought (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 302 Subordinated Politics and Intergroup Relations*
    • POSC 351 Political Theory of Martin Luther King, Jr. (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 366 Urban Political Economy (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 108 In & Out of Africa: How Transnational Black Lives Matter (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 151 Global Minnesota: An Anthropology of Our State (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 180 Anthropology and Colonialism in Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 225 Social Movements
    • SOAN 256 Africa: Representation and Conflict (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 263 Terrorism (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 268 African Popular Culture (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 272 Sociological Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in the United States (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 310 Sociology of Mass Incarceration
    • SOAN 314 Contemporary Issues in Critical Criminology (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 326 Ecology and Anthropology Tanzania Program: Cultural Anthropology of East Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 395 Ethnography of Reproduction (not offered in 2021-22)
    • WGST 140 Politics of Women's Health (not offered in 2021-22)

    Additional Distribution Electives: Arts Practice
  • Senior Seminar/Capstone Experience (3 credits)

This 3-credit course gives Africana Studies majors and minors the opportunity to apply what they have learned by preparing for and presenting at the annual National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) conference. Under the guidance of Africana Studies faculty members, students will interrogate the origins and institutionalization of Africana Studies; revise an Africana Studies-themed research paper completed in a previous course into a conference paper; and prepare and submit a paper proposal for NCBS. At NCBS, students will present their own research and engage with the work of Africana Studies scholars at panels, plenaries and workshops. Afterward, they will write a short assessment of the conference and their experience in Africana Studies at Carleton.

  • Comprehensive Exercise AFST 400 (6 credits)

The comprehensive exercise is a substantial (approximately 34-40 page) research paper on a topic within African, African American, and/or African Diaspora studies, grounded in two complementary disciplines, advised by two faculty members chosen from these two disciplines. The student should have completed a 300-level course in one of these two disciplines. The comps process begins with a proposal in fall term of the senior year, and ends with a final written thesis and oral presentation early in spring term.

Other Courses Pertinent to Africana Studies

  • ARTH 160 American Art to 1940
  • ECON 240 Microeconomics of Development
  • EDUC 340 Race, Immigration, and Schools
  • ENGL 234 Literature of the American South (not offered in 2021-22)
  • FREN 246 Contemporary Senegal
  • HIST 121 Rethinking the American Experience: American Social History, 1865-1945 (not offered in 2021-22)
  • HIST 126 African American History II
  • HIST 304 Black Study and the University (not offered in 2021-22)
  • MUSC 136 History of Rock (not offered in 2021-22)
  • POSC 122 Politics in America: Liberty and Equality
  • POSC 241 Ethnic Conflict (not offered in 2021-22)
  • RELG 122 Introduction to Islam

African Studies Minor

The Africana Studies minor is designed to complement a student's disciplinary major through an interdisciplinary specialization on the contexts and experiences of Africans and their many diasporas. Combining area studies and ethnic studies foci, the Africana Studies minor provides students the opportunity to explore the rich connections and exchanges among African people, their descendants, and the global locales--in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East--in which they have made and are making their lives. Students can do this through both on-campus courses and off-campus studies programs. In their senior year Africana Studies minors draw connections among these courses through an interdisciplinary reflective capstone experience.

Fostering interdisciplinary critical thinking, the Africana Studies minor prepares students for lifetime engagement in scholarship as well as in fields such as law, public policy, education, public health, social work, and the arts. Toward this end, and in addition to coursework, students are encouraged to take advantage of the rich array of speakers, exhibits, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities related to Africans and their diasporas.

Africana Studies Minor Requirements

The Africana Studies minors requires seven courses as follows. Courses cannot double count for two requirements.

One core interdisciplinary (6-credit) course which, in part, specifically discusses Africana Studies as a coherent field of study.

  • AFST 112 Black Revolution on Campus (not offered in 2021-22)
  • AFST 113 Introduction to Africana Studies (not offered in 2021-22)
  • AFST 115 Black Heroism in the Diaspora and Early America
  • AFST 200 The Black Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century (not offered in 2021-22)
  • AFST 230 Black Diaspora, Politics of Place
  • POSC 275 Black Political Thought (not offered in 2021-22)

Two survey courses (12 credits) that introduce the "state of the field" of African and/or African Diaspora studies within specific disciplines

  • AFST 112 Black Revolution on Campus (not offered in 2021-22)
  • AFST 113 Introduction to Africana Studies (not offered in 2021-22)
  • AFST 120 Gender and Sexuality in the African Diaspora (not offered in 2021-22)
  • AFST 210 Historiographies of Slavery
  • AFST 215 Contemporary Theory in Black Studies
  • ARTH 140 African Art and Culture (not offered in 2021-22)
  • ENGL 117 African American Literature (not offered in 2021-22)
  • ENGL 238 African Literature in English
  • HIST 126 African American History II
  • HIST 181 West Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade
  • HIST 183 History of Early West Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
  • HIST 184 Colonial West Africa
  • HIST 284 History, Culture and Commerce Program: Heritage in Africa and Arabia
  • POSC 239 The Poor and the Powerless (not offered in 2021-22)
  • SOAN 108 In & Out of Africa: How Transnational Black Lives Matter (not offered in 2021-22)

Three distribution courses (18 credits) that combine depth and breadth in the field. Each student should take 18 credits chosen from at least two of the following disciplinary groups: Literary and Artistic Analysis; Humanistic Inquiry and Social Inquiry. Two of the three distributional courses must be at the 200-level or above. At least one of the distribution courses should be a 300-level course in which the student produces a substantial paper or project in Africana Studies encompassing African, African American and African Diaspora Studies. In rare cases, a student can petition to write a substantial paper in a 200-level course (i.e., be released from the 300-level course requirement), if that course is highly relevant to their own focus.

  • Literary/Artistic Analysis
    • DANC 266 Reading The Dancing Body
    • ENGL 230 Studies in African American Literature: From the 1950s to the Present
    • ENGL 233 Writing and Social Justice
    • ENGL 238 African Literature in English
    • ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction
    • ENGL 258 Playwrights of Color: Taking the Stage (not offered in 2021-22)
    • ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts (not offered in 2021-22)
    • ENGL 352 Toni Morrison: Novelist
    • FREN 245 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2021-22)
    • FREN 308 France and the African Imagination
    • FREN 395 The Mande of West Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 126 America's Music
    • MUSC 130 The History of Jazz (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 131 The Blues From the Delta to Chicago
    • MUSC 140 Ethnomusicology and the World's Music
    • MUSC 232 Golden Age of R & B (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 245 Tradition, Innovation, and Globalization in African Music (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 332 Motown (not offered in 2021-22)
    • MUSC 334 Marvin Gaye (not offered in 2021-22)
  • Humanistic Inquiry
    • AFST 115 Black Heroism in the Diaspora and Early America
    • AFST 130 Global Islam and Blackness (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 210 Historiographies of Slavery
    • GWSS 265 Black Feminist Thought
    • GWSS 289 Pleasure, Intimacy, Violence
    • HIST 125 African American History I: From Africa to the Civil War
    • HIST 127 The Roaring Twenties & the Rough Thirties in U.S. History (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 181 West Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade
    • HIST 184 Colonial West Africa
    • HIST 214 Sport and the Color Line (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 218 Black Women's History
    • HIST 219 Black Revolutions in the Atlantic World (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 220 From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Black History and/in Film (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 221 Nat Turner, Booker T. Washington, and Fannie Lou Hamer in History and Memory (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 222 Slavery in Film, Literature, and History (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 223 The Presidents and their Slaves (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 225 James Baldwin and Black Lives Matter (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 230 Black Americans and the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 281 War in Modern Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 282 African Diaspora in Arabia
    • HIST 284 History, Culture and Commerce Program: Heritage in Africa and Arabia
    • HIST 285 History, Culture and Commerce Program: Critical Historical Research
    • HIST 382 Slavery & Abolition in Africa and its Diaspora (not offered in 2021-22)
    • HIST 383 Africa's Colonial Legacies (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PHIL 228 Freedom and Alienation in Black American Philosophy
    • PHIL 260 Critical Philosophy of Race
    • PHIL 288 A Survey of Historical Ideas of Race (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PHIL 304 Epistemology and Oppression (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PHIL 305 Frederick Douglass: The Philosophies of a Slave, Citizen, and Diplomat (not offered in 2021-22)
    • RELG 211 Race and Religion: Slavery, Colonialism, and their Afterlives (not offered in 2021-22)
    • RELG 227 Liberation Theologies
    • RELG 262 Islamic Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
  • Social Inquiry
    • AFST 112 Black Revolution on Campus (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 200 The Black Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century (not offered in 2021-22)
    • AFST 220 Intersectionality (not offered in 2021-22)
    • EDUC 225 Issues in Urban Education
    • EDUC 245 School Reform: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (not offered in 2021-22)
    • EDUC 338 Multicultural Education
    • HIST 128 Slavery and Universities: Past and Present (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 207 Global Decline of Democracy: Urban Revanchism and Popular Resistance (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 218 Schools, Scholarship and Policy in the United States
    • POSC 239 The Poor and the Powerless (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 266 Urban Political Economy (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 273 Race and Politics in the U.S.
    • POSC 275 Black Political Thought (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 302 Subordinated Politics and Intergroup Relations*
    • POSC 351 Political Theory of Martin Luther King, Jr. (not offered in 2021-22)
    • POSC 366 Urban Political Economy (not offered in 2021-22)
    • PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 108 In & Out of Africa: How Transnational Black Lives Matter (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 151 Global Minnesota: An Anthropology of Our State (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 180 Anthropology and Colonialism in Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 225 Social Movements
    • SOAN 256 Africa: Representation and Conflict (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 263 Terrorism (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 268 African Popular Culture (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 272 Sociological Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in the United States (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 310 Sociology of Mass Incarceration
    • SOAN 314 Contemporary Issues in Critical Criminology (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 326 Ecology and Anthropology Tanzania Program: Cultural Anthropology of East Africa (not offered in 2021-22)
    • SOAN 395 Ethnography of Reproduction (not offered in 2021-22)
    • WGST 140 Politics of Women's Health (not offered in 2021-22)
  • Additional Distribution Electives:

Senior Seminar/Capstone Experience (3 credits)

  • AFST 398 Africana Studies Capstone (not offered in 2021-22)
This 3-credit course gives Africana Studies majors and minors the opportunity to apply what they have learned by preparing for and presenting at the annual National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) conference. Under the guidance of Africana Studies faculty members, students will interrogate the origins and institutionalization of Africana Studies; revise an Africana Studies-themed research paper completed in a previous course into a conference paper; and prepare and submit a paper proposal for NCBS. At NCBS, students will present their own research and engage with the work of Africana Studies scholars at panels, plenaries and workshops. Afterward, they will write a short assessment of the conference and their experience in Africana Studies at Carleton.

Minors are highly encouraged to take the AMST 345 junior methods course.

Africana Studies Courses

AFST 100 Gender and Sex in African History This course looks at the ways that Africanist historians, art historians, anthropologists, and sociologists have examined gender and sexualities in selected cases on the African continent. Students will study the complexities of gender and sexual experiences, practices, identities, and communities within various historical and cultural contexts. 6 credits; AI, WR1, IS; Fall; Thabiti C Willis
AFST 112 Black Revolution on Campus This course explores the activist roots of Africana Studies. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, students organized hundreds of protests that sparked a period of unrest, retaliation, negotiation, and reform that fundamentally reshaped college campuses across the United States. Black students, along with their “Third World” and progressive white allies, demanded that academe serve their communities and provide a “more relevant education.” The course will consider the influence of various movements, including Black power, anti-war, second wave feminism, and decolonization, on the creation of interdisciplinary fields including Black Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies. 6 credits; SI, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 113 Introduction to Africana Studies This course focuses on the histories, ideas, experiences, and dreams that have shaped the lives of people of African descent. Then and now perspectives will define our exploration of incarceration and freedom; migration and emigration; separatism versus integration; race and class; art and politics. Discussion topics and seminal ideas will be drawn from texts including the following: the anthology Call and Response (on key debates in Black studies); the historical memoir Lose Your Mother (chronicling a journey along the Atlantic slave route); a work of fiction Middle Passage (that tells a story of enslavement, revolt, and redemption). 6 credits; HI, IDS, WR2; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 115 Black Heroism in the Diaspora and Early America This course examines motifs of Black Heroism throughout the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Early America. We take an interdisciplinary and Black Studies approach to topics like slave life and maroonage, freedom suits, military enlistment, and more. The course material will include fiction like Frederick Douglass' The Heroic Slave as well as theoretical texts like Neil Roberts Freedom as Maroonage. The aim of the course is to provide a look at the multifacted lives of Black people in the diaspora and early America with an emphasis on complex and quotidian resistance to domination. 6 credits; HI, WR2, IDS; Fall; Eddie E O'Byrn
AFST 120 Gender and Sexuality in the African Diaspora This course is an interdisciplinary examination of gender and sexualities throughout the Africa Diaspora. We will study the complexities of gender and sexual experiences, practices, identities, and community formations within various cultural contexts throughout the Black world. 6 credits; SI, IS; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 130 Global Islam and Blackness This course will introduce students to key trends and moments in Islamic thought and activism in Africa and the black diaspora. It explores the historical construction of the categories of “race” and “religion” through a focus on Islam and blackness. We will analyze how blackness and Islam, and their relationship, has been conceptualized and presented by non-Africans, as well as the history of Islam in Africa and in the black diaspora. We will explore the construction of blackness within Islamic history and cultures, highlighting the notion of the Moor in medieval times and the Nation of Islam in U.S. history. 6 credits; SI, WR2, IS; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 180 Religion and Politics in Africa What is religion? What is politics? What are the relations between these presumed distinct spheres of social life? Is the relationship between religion and politics in Africa different from what it is in other parts of the world? If so, what explains these differences? Further, what assumptions about Africa and its history might explain how religion and politics are thought about in Africa? Through an interdisciplinary approach, this course explores these questions by examining the history and contemporary conditions of religious and political life in Africa. Because of the significance of colonialism in African history and present conditions, the course will study these questions though a chronology that is centered around the European colonization of the continent.  6 credits; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 200 The Black Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century This course focuses on theories, ideologies, frameworks, and methodologies that constitute: 1) the Black intellectual tradition in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and 2) Africana Studies as an academic discipline. The course is structured around examinations of Black intellectual strategies and struggles for justice, recognition, self-determination, and freedom. We will read and discuss classic and contemporary scholarship concerning the study of the Black experience in the United States and the African Diaspora, and that has shaped the discipline of Africana Studies. 6 credits; SI, WR2, IDS; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 210 Historiographies of Slavery This survey course explores how Black enslaved and ex-enslaved people narrated their experiences of chattel slavery, and its immediate aftermath, in America. Stretching beyond a focus on only traditional historical slave narratives, this course adopts an interdisciplinary approach to slavery that utilizes philosophy, literature, and media studies. Reading and media for the course may include Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, selections William Still's The Underground Railroad and the WPA Slave Narrative Collection, the film 12 Years a Slave and the miniseries Roots, and Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo." 6 credits; HI, WR2, IDS; Spring; Eddie E O'Byrn
AFST 215 Contemporary Theory in Black Studies This course examines the work of a major theorist in the Black intellectual tradition within the last seventy years. Students are invited to take a dedicated dive into primary scholarship by focusing on a figure such as bell hooks, Derrick Bell, Angela Davis, Charles Mills, Saidiya Hartman, Frank Wilderson, Maya Angelou, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and/or Cornel West. Students should expect an opportunity to examine primary scholarship and build analytical skills to trace themes and methods. This year's focus will be on ethical, social, and political theory of bell hooks (1952 - 2021). 6 credits; HI, WR2, IDS; Spring; Eddie E O'Byrn
AFST 220 Intersectionality This course is an in-depth examination of intersectionality, as a theory and analytic framework, and the socio/political projects out of which it emerges. We will focus on how intersecting categories of social difference such as race, class, gender, and sexuality create and maintain social inequalities in U.S. society and abroad. Some of the other intersecting forms of social difference we will explore include, ethnicity, nation/migration, dis/ability, and HIV/disease status.  6 credits; SI, IDS; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 230 Black Diaspora, Politics of Place Central to diasporic identity formation and imagination is the simultaneous belonging to a multiplicity of places. For black diasporic subjects, struggles against oppression and for new political futures inspire transgression against normative political boundaries. This class explores the role of place and politics in the making of the black diaspora in Europe and the Americas. It emphasizes the intellectual and political connections and the sense of shared identity and destiny. Through an interdisciplinary approach, this course will offer a global history of race, identity, and politics through the lens of the black diaspora. 6 credits; HI, IS; Spring; Ahmed S Ibrahim
AFST 398 Africana Studies Capstone This three-credit course gives Africana Studies majors and minors the opportunity to reflect on their learning in Africana Studies and to prepare to apply this knowledge to future endeavors. In this capstone course, the student creates a portfolio of their work in Africana Studies and writes a five-ten page reflective essay tying these papers together. This course gives students an opportunity to seriously reflect about the courses they have taken and the work they have produced within and related to their AFST major/minor, and to draw connections among them. Prerequisite: A major or minor in AFST; preferably to be taken in the senior year. 3 credits; NE; Not offered 2021-22
AFST 400 Integrative Exercise The comprehensive exercise is a substantial (approximately 34-40 page) research paper on a topic within African, African American, and/or African Diaspora studies. The student should have completed a 300-level AFST course, or a 300-level course that counts toward the AFST major. The comps process begins with a Comps Topic Development Worksheet during spring term of the junior year, a comps topic intention form followed by a proposal in fall term of the senior year, and ends with a final written thesis and oral presentation early in spring term. 1-6 credit; S/NC; Fall, Winter, Spring