AFAM - African American Studies

The comparative study of old and new African diasporas in Europe and the Americas emphasizing political movements, leadership and tactics. The roles of educational and religious institutions in developing resistance to doctrines of racial supremacy.

A chronological survey of African American history from pre-colonial Africa and colonial America through the twentieth century. Focuses on the economic, political, social and cultural context in which a uniquely constituted African American culture developed in the course of the struggle to achieve human rights.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition area of the core with a grade of C- or above. We will study the ways in which early African American literary traditions have been formed not only by slavery, but also by community, geography, politics, and literature itself. Works may include slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Keckley, and Harriet Jacobs, as well as 19th century fiction by Harriet Wilson, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Chesnutt. (H2)

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition area of the core with a grade of C- or above. This course explores the influences of blues, jazz, and spirituals; folklore; and socio-economic history on African American literature of the 20th and early 21st centuries. We’ll examine how survival and resistance become art forms in the work of authors like W.E. B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. (H2)

An examination of African American political activity in the 20th century. African American participation in the U.S. electoral process and the power structure in African American communities.

This course will explore the theories, research and practices of African American psychology. Themes include the definition and development of African-American psychology, identity and personality formation of African Americans, and historical and current issues affecting the lives of African Americans.

This course is a general topics course in African American Studies, allowing faculty and students to study particular topics of interest.

Prerequisite: 3 hours in African American history, literary criticism or politics, or permission of the instructor. This course examines the connections between autobiography, political philosophy, utopian thought and politics in African American autobiographies analyzing to determine the criticisms authors launched against their societies, the social and political alternatives suggested and the agencies they suggested be mobilized to institute change.

Prerequisite: HIST 246 or AFPS 350 or completion of the Philosophical Inquiry section of the Core. An introduction to African political thought from the pre-colonial period to the present. Emphasis will be given to the impact of Islam, cultural nationalism, nationalism, revolutionary theories, democracy, African socialism and Marxism of major African political theorists.

Prerequisite: 3 credits of history, religion, political science, or African American Studies at the 200 level, or permission of the instructor. This course introduces students to the core of black Christian theological thought: black liberation theology. We will explore the historical roots of black Christian theology and focus on some of its key tenets, like the physical depiction of Christ, the depiction of the Christian community/communities and the role of Christianity. We will identify the major points of convergence and divergence between black liberation theology and other liberation theologies such as womanist theology and Latin American liberation theology.

Prerequisites: Senior standing, at least three courses in the African American Studies minor, and permission of the instructor The assistant would attend classes, tutor students, show and discuss films and join in periodic conferences with the instructor. Other duties would include assisting the instructor in other class-related projects, including field trips, speakers and discussion sessions. May be taken only once. Grading is on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

Prerequisites: 6 credits in African American Studies and permission of the instructor. Independent reading and/or research in a selected field of African American Studies. Conferences.

An upper-level special topics course offered at the discretion of the department. The content and methods vary with the interest of students and faculty members

Prerequisites: 9 credits in African American Studies. An investigation of how race and racial dynamics function in a variety of private, public and on-governmental settings through supervised full- or part-time work. Sites and projects must be approved by, and coordinated with, the instructor. Grading is on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing and HIST 217 or HIST 218 or AFHS 257. This course explores the origins and development of racial attitudes, both scientific and popular, supporting mythologies, and contemporary institutional expressions. It will also discuss the African Americans’ attempts to resist white supremacy. Emphasis will be on African American history since Reconstruction.

Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing and AFPS 240 or PSCI 202 or PSCI 333 or AFRL 311; or permission of instructor

An examination of African American feminist scholarship in the 19th and 20th centuries, as African American women grappled with the issues of gender, race and class. Focus on African American women’s perspectives and diverse experiences within the context of changing political, economic and social structures.