African/African American Studies Concentration (AFAMc)
The African and African American Studies concentration 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 African and African American Studies concentration 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.
Fostering interdisciplinary critical thinking, the African and African American Studies concentration 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.
Requirements for the Concentration
The African/African American Studies Concentration requires seven courses as follows:
One interdisciplinary course with an "AFAM" designation;
Two survey courses that introduce the "state of the field" of African and/or African Diaspora studies within specific disciplines;
Three distribution courses (from the list of relevant courses) chosen from at least two of the following disciplinary groups: Arts and Literature; Humanties; Social Sciences. 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 African and/or African American 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.
The capstone experience consists of AFAM 398, a two-credit course in which the student creates a portfolio of their work in African and African American studies and writes a 5-10 page reflective essay tying these papers together. This course gives students an opportunity to seriously relfect about the courses they have taken and the work they have produced within the concentration, and to draw connections among them. The two-credit course is offered by the Director or another member of the program core faculty. If there are not enough students in a particular year to offer AFAM 398 as a course, it will be offered as a tutorial. Even in that case, if multiple students are completing their major or concentration in the same year, they will strive to take the tutorial simultaneously to facilitate common discussion of the main themes in African and African American Studies and how they are woven through the corpus of each student's undergraduate opus.
Concentrators are highly encouraged to take the AMST 345 junior methods course.
Structure of Courses Applicable to the Concentration
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 113 Introduction to African/African American Studies
AFAM 115 An Introduction to African American Culture, Practice, and Religion
AFAM 130 African American Social Movements (not offered in 2014-2015)
AFAM 182 Black Identity and Belonging (not offered in 2014-2015)
AFAM 194 The Black Middle Class (not offered in 2014-2015)
Survey Courses (12 credits). Each student must take two of the following 6-credit courses:
ARTH 140 African Art and Culture
ENGL 117 African American Literature (not offered in 2014-2015)
ENGL 238 African Literature in English
HIST 125 African American History I (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 126 African American History II
HIST 181 West Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade
HIST 182 Living in the Colonial Context: Africa, 1850-1950 (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 183 History of Early West Africa
HIST 184 Colonial West Africa (not offered in 2014-2015)
Distribution Courses (18 credits). Each student should take 18 credits chosen from at least two of the following disciplinary groups: Arts and Literature, Humanities and Social Sciences including one six-credit course which must be at the 300-level.
Arts and Literature
DANC 301 Contemporary Styles and Techniques: African Dance
ENGL 136 Twenty-first Century Black Voices
ENGL 238 African Literature in English
ENGL 252 Caribbean Fiction (not offered in 2014-2015)
ENGL 258 Contemporary American Playwrights of Color
ENGL 350 The Postcolonial Novel: Forms and Contexts (not offered in 2014-2015)
FREN 235 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2014-2015)
FREN 245 Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean (not offered in 2014-2015)
FREN 308 France and the African Imagination (not offered in 2014-2015)
FREN 395 The Mande of West Africa: A Tradition of Change
MUSC 130 The History of Jazz (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 131 The Blues From the Delta to Chicago
MUSC 132 Golden Age of R and B (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 141 Global Popular Music
MUSC 245 Music of Africa
MUSC 332 Motown (not offered in 2014-2015)
Humanities
HIST 100 History and Memory in Africa, Nineteenth through Twenty-first Centuries
HIST 100 American Antebellum Slavery: History and Historians
HIST 181 West Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade
HIST 182 Living in the Colonial Context: Africa, 1850-1950 (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 184 Colonial West Africa (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 219 Is Obama Black?: American Mixed Race History (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 228 History of U.S. Civil Rights and Black Power (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 276 The African Diaspora in Latin America (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 280 African in the Arab World
HIST 281 War in Modern Africa
HIST 286 Africans in the Arab World: On Site and Revisited (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 324 The Concord Intellectuals (not offered in 2014-2015)
HIST 381 U.S. Relations with Ghana
HIST 382 U.S. Relations with Ghana: The Field Trip and Beyond
RELG 227 Liberation Theologies (not offered in 2014-2015)
RELG 244 Hip Hop, Reggae, and Religion: Music and the Religio-Political Imagination of the Black Atlantic
RELG 247 RAP and Religion: Rhymes about God and the Good (not offered in 2014-2015)
RELG 262 Islamic Africa (not offered in 2014-2015)
Social Sciences
AFAM 130 African American Social Movements (not offered in 2014-2015)
AFAM 194 The Black Middle Class (not offered in 2014-2015)
EDUC 238 Multicultural Education: Race, Gender and Education (not offered in 2014-2015)
EDUC 338 Multicultural Education
ENTS 264 Tanzania and Ethiopia Program: Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa (not offered in 2014-2015)
ENTS 280 Tanzania and Ethiopia Program: Research Projects on Conservation and Development (not offered in 2014-2015)
ENTS 284 Tanzania and Ethiopia Program: Cultural Studies (not offered in 2014-2015)
ENTS 285 Tanzania and Ethiopia Program: Wildlife Conservation and Livelihoods (not offered in 2014-2015)
POSC 207 Urban Politics in a Global Era
POSC 218 Schools, Scholarship and Policy in the United States
POSC 266 Urban Political Economy
POSC 306 How Race Matters in American Politics* (not offered in 2014-2015)
POSC 351 Political Theory of Martin Luther King, Jr. (not offered in 2014-2015)
POSC 366 Urban Political Economy*
PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice
SOAN 100 Debating Difference in Twenty-first Century America
SOAN 115 Inequality in American Society (not offered in 2014-2015)
SOAN 139 Society and Social Problems (not offered in 2014-2015)
SOAN 256 Africa: Representation and Conflict
SOAN 272 Race and Ethnicity in the United States
SOAN 395 Ethnography of Reproduction
Arts Practice
DANC 301 Contemporary Styles and Techniques: African Dance
ENGL 136 Twenty-first Century Black Voices
FREN 395 The Mande of West Africa: A Tradition of Change
MUSC 183J Ethnic Drumming Instruction (Juried)
MUSC 192 West African Drum Ensemble
MUSC 193 Mbira Ensemble (not offered in 2014-2015)
MUSC 195 Jubilee Singers
MUSC 283J Ethnic Drumming Instruction (Juried)
Senior Seminar/Capstone Experience (2 credits)
The capstone experience consists of AFAM 398, a two-credit course in which the student creates a portfolio of their work in African and African American Studies and writes a 5-10 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 the concentration, and to draw connections among them.