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Courses

Fall 2012

  • AFAM 100: Here, There, and Everywhere: African Diaspora Formations in and Beyond The Atlantic

    "Diaspora" refers to the dispersion of a people with a common origin from an ancestral or established homeland. This course considers historical conditions in the formation of African diasporic communities in and beyond the Americas, including: (a) reasons for dispersal, (b) processes creating new identities in "host countries," and (c) issues of nostalgia and belonging. Additional topics may include: survival and expression of elements of African cultural heritage; African diaspora social and political movements; social, cultural and political crosscurrents and population movements within the African diaspora; and diasporic peoples’ influences exerted globally or upon the African homeland itself. 6 credit; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Writing Requirement, International Studies; offered Fall 2012 -- L. Beck

Winter 2013

  • AFAM 220: Souls of Black Folks: Afrcn Diaspora Intellectual Thinkers & Questions of Black Identity & Belonging

    This course surveys the writings of African diaspora people as they have historically grappled with the question of what it means to be black. We will insert black intellectual voices into the canon of important sociological, anthropological, and philosophical debates on issues of race, gender, diaspora, and belonging. Along with exploring and contextualizing the responses and dialogues of black thinkers such as Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Franz Fanon, we will also engage with more contemporary articulations of black intellectual thought through an engagement with the work of scholars including Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and Kobena Mercer. 6 credit; Social Sciences, Social Inquiry, International Studies; offered Winter 2013 -- L. Beck

  • AFAM 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, grounded in two complementary disciplines, advised by two faculty members chosen from these two disciplines. The student should have completed a 300-level capstone experience 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. 6 credit; S/NC; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Winter 2013 -- Staff

Spring 2013

  • AFAM 130: African American Social Movements

    Social movements have played a critical role in African American communities, as both struggles for freedom and liberation as well as struggles for identity and recognition. This course examines several specific social movements, including the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power movement, and Black Feminism, among others, from multiple disciplinary perspectives. We will examine these movements comparatively through the disciplinary lenses of history, sociology, political science, and communication studies, and consider their trajectory through the contexts within which they emerge and develop. We will also evaluate these movements in terms of participants’ social identities as well as movements’ varying ideologies. 6 credit; Social Sciences, Social Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Spring 2013 -- Daniel Williams

  • AFAM 230: The Black Middle Class

    Since the 1960s, the Black middle class has been an object of debate and interest, both among scholars and in society. In this course, we will examine the Black middle class from an interdisciplinary perspective, specifically considering questions and problems posed in economics, sociology, history and literature. Among other topics, we will examine when and how the Black middle class emerged, its distinctiveness from its white and working-class counterparts, and its implications and larger meaning in popular culture and public discourse about race, class, and American society. 6 credit; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement, Social Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Spring 2013 -- D Williams

Related Courses

ECON 240 Microeconomics of Development

EDUC 238 Multicultural Education: Race, Gender and Education

EDUC 353 Schooling and Opportunity in American Society (not offered in 2012-2013)

HIST 214 Rethinking the American Civil War

HIST 229 Working with Gender in U.S. History (not offered in 2012-2013)

MUSC 183 Ethnic Drumming Instruction

MUSC 330 Jazz History Seminar (not offered in 2012-2013)

POSC 122 Politics in America: Liberty and Equality

POSC 219 Protest, Power & Grassroots Organizing: American Social Movements (not offered in 2012-2013)

WGST 110 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies


Major Requirements

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. Interdisciplinary Course (6 credits). Each student must complete one interdisciplinary 6-credit course which, in part, specifically discusses African/African American Studies as a discipline:

AFAM 100 Here, There, and Everywhere: African Diaspora Formations in and Beyond The Atlantic

AFAM 113 Introduction to African/African American Studies (not offered in 2012-2013)

AFAM 220 Souls of Black Folks: Afrcn Diaspora Intellectual Thinkers & Questions of Black Identity & Belonging

III. Survey Courses (18 credits). Each student must take three of the following 6-credit courses:

ARTH 140 African Art and Culture (not offered in 2012-2013)

ENGL 117 African American Literature

HIST 125 African American History I

HIST 126 African American History II

HIST 183 History of Early West Africa (not offered in 2012-2013)

HIST 184 Colonial West Africa

IV. Distribution Courses (30 credits). Each student should take five 6-credit courses that are essential to his or her major from the following groups. Among these distribution courses, students choose at least one course each from among humanistic inquiry, social inquiry and literary arts curricular explorations, and at least two of the total five distribution courses must be at the 300-level.

Literary and Artistic Analysis

ENGL 238 African Literature in English

ENGL 243 Text and Film (not offered in 2012-2013)

ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction (not offered in 2012-2013)

ENGL 258 Contemporary American Playwrights of Color (not offered in 2012-2013)

ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts

FREN 235 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2012-2013)

FREN 245 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2012-2013)

FREN 250 Mali Program: Film and Society in Mali (not offered in 2012-2013)

FREN 251 Mali Program: Negotiating the Past: The Challenges of Nation-building in Mali (not offered in 2012-2013)

FREN 252 Mali Program: Literature and Society in Mali (not offered in 2012-2013)

MUSC 130 The History of Jazz

MUSC 131 The Blues From the Delta to Chicago

MUSC 132 Golden Age of R & B

MUSC 245 Music of Africa (not offered in 2012-2013)

MUSC 332 Motown (not offered in 2012-2013)

Humanistic Inquiry

HIST 100 History and Memory in Africa, Nineteenth-Twenty-first Centuries

HIST 280 Africans in the Arab World

HIST 281 War in Modern Africa (not offered in 2012-2013)

HIST 282 Masquerades in Africa (not offered in 2012-2013)

HIST 286 Africans in the Arab World: On Site and Revisited

HIST 322 Civil Rights and Black Power

HIST 381 History, Memory and the Atlantic World: Ghana and the United (not offered in 2012-2013)

HIST 382 History, Memory, and the Atlantic World: On Site and Revisited (not offered in 2012-2013)

RELG 246 Religion and the Black Freedom Struggle (not offered in 2012-2013)

RELG 247 RAP and Religion: Rhymes about God and the Good (not offered in 2012-2013)

RELG 262 Islamic Africa (not offered in 2012-2013)

RELG 330 Radical Pacifism (not offered in 2012-2013)

Social Inquiry

EDUC 225 Issues in Urban Education (not offered in 2012-2013)

ENTS 264 Tanzania and Ethiopia Program: Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa

ENTS 284 Tanzania and Ethiopia Program: Cultural Studies

ENTS 285 Tanzania and Ethiopia Program: Wildlife Conservation and Livelihoods

POSC 266 Urban Political Economy

POSC 306 How Race Matters in American Politics* (not offered in 2012-2013)

POSC 366 Urban Political Economy*

PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice

SOAN 256 Transformations in African Ethnography

SOAN 395 Ethnography of Reproduction

Arts Practice

DANC 301 Contemporary Styles and Techniques: African Dance

MUSC 183J Ethnic Drumming Instruction (Juried)

MUSC 183 Ethnic Drumming Instruction

MUSC 191 African Karimba Ensemble (not offered in 2012-2013)

MUSC 192 African Drum Ensemble

MUSC 193 African Mbira Ensemble (not offered in 2012-2013)

MUSC 195 Jubilee Singers

MUSC 199 African Drum Class

V. Senior Seminar/Capstone Experience (6 credits)

The African/African American senior seminar/capstone experience can be fulfilled through a 300-level course with high African/African American content and in which a major term paper in African/African American is completed. This 300-level capstone should be completed in one of the two disciplines in which the student writes his/her comprehensive exercise.

VI. Comprehensive Exercise (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 capstone experience 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.