Director: Professor Kofi Owusu
Committee Members: Deborah Appleman, Elizabeth Ciner, Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, Richard A. Keiser, Chérif Keïta, Stephen K. Kelly, Melinda Russell
African/African American Studies (AFAM)
The program in African/African American Studies provides a cross-cultural and comparative framework for systematically studying the traditions and experiences of Africans in the New and Old Worlds. Students in this program are encouraged to develop their analytic, research and literary skills through a critical study of patterns of Western and African civilizations in their interwoven complexity. The program provides a forum for addressing topics such as cultural and artistic creativity, construction of self, marginality, responses to exclusion, and the conjunction of issues related to gender, class, race and ethnicity.
The African/African American Studies Committee is composed of faculty and administrative members. It acts as a focal point for the encouragement of African/African American studies at Carleton by actively urging departments and faculty members to offer courses in this field, by preparing each year a list of available courses and faculty resources, and by supporting the hiring of specialists in the field by various departments.
Numerous courses taught at Carleton have a bearing on African/African American Studies in addition to those offered by the program itself. Students majoring in African/African American Studies have been able to create programs, on an individual basis, out of the available Carleton offerings, independent study, and, in some cases, off-campus study. Students interested in majoring in the field should consult the Director of African/African American Studies before the end of their sophomore year.
Requirements for a Major
I. Admission to the program will depend upon the acceptance, by the African/African American Studies Committee, of a written proposal outlining the student's program of study.
II. Survey Courses (18 credits). Students must take three of the following courses:
AFAM 113 Introduction to African/African American Studies
ARTH 140 African Art and Culture
DANC 115 Cultures of Dance
ENGL 117 African American Literature
HIST 121 Rethinking the American Experience: American Social History, 1865-1945
HIST 180 An Historical Survey of East Africa
HIST 220 African American History I
MUSC 130 The History of Jazz
MUSC 137 Spiritual Hymns and Gospel Music: Aspects of African-American Music Traditions (not offered in 2009-2010)
MUSC 245 Music of Africa (not offered in 2009-2010)
RELG 122 Introduction to Islam
III. Interdisciplinary Course (6 credits). Each student must complete one interdisciplinary course which, in part, specifically discusses African/African American Studies as a discipline:
ENGL 243 Text and Film
IV. Distribution Courses (30 credits). Each student should take five courses that are essential to his or her major from the following groups:
Arts and Literature
ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction
FREN 235 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2009-2010)
THEA 242 Twentieth Century American Drama
Humanities
HIST 220 African American History I
HIST 221 African American History II (not offered in 2009-2010)
HIST 276 The African Diaspora in Latin America
HIST 322 Civil Rights and Black Power
HIST 324 The Concord Intellectuals (not offered in 2009-2010)
Social Sciences
EDUC 238 Multicultural Education: Race, Gender and Education
POSC 207 Urban Politics in a Global Era
POSC 266 Urban Political Economy
POSC 306 How Race Matters in American Politics* (not offered in 2009-2010)
POSC 351 Political Theory of Martin Luther King, Jr.* (not offered in 2009-2010)
POSC 366 Urban Political Economy*
POSC 367 Suburbanization in America* (not offered in 2009-2010)
PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice
SOAN 256 Ethnography of Africa
At least one course must be chosen from each of the three groups, and at least two of the total of five courses must be at the 300-level.
V. Senior Seminar in African/African American Studies (6 credits)
ENGL 395 Toni Morrison: Nobel Laureate
HIST 395 Transnational Black History Since 1945
VI. Comprehensive Exercise (6 credits). Each student should have a faculty adviser in his or her area of focus who will direct the comprehensive and integrative project along with the program director. The research project will culminate in an oral examination in defense of the completed integrative essay.
Completion of the major stipulates, then, a minimum of 66 credits: three survey courses, one interdisciplinary course, five distribution courses, senior seminar, and the comprehensive exercise.
Students are urged to pursue off-campus study in a community setting in the United States, Africa or the Caribbean. The Office of Off-Campus Studies provides information about such opportunities.
African/African American Studies Courses
AFAM 113. Introduction to African/African American Studies We will read essays (by Du Bois, Achebe, Ngugi, and Karenga), novels (by Baldwin and Aidoo), a play (by Hansberry) and a memoir (by Obama), and discuss some of the seminal ideas that inform African/African American Studies. 6 cr., AL, RAD, Spring—K. Owusu