Course Listing
Fall 2023 Undergraduate Courses
Course Descriptions
AAS Course Page - Fall 2023
These course listings are subject to change. Courses with low enrollment may be canceled. The official system of record at the University of Virginia is the Student Information System (SIS). www.virginia.edu/sis. Make sure to discuss your curricular plan and academic progress report with your AAS major advisor during Advising Period, March 27 to April 7.
Core Courses
All majors and minors must complete the 1010 and 1020 core course sequence.
AAS 1010 Introduction to African American and African Studies I
Instructor: TBA. Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, Minor 125.
This introductory course surveys the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean from approximately the Middle Ages to the 1880s. Emphases include the Atlantic slave trade and its complex relationship to Africa; the economic systems, cultures, and communities of Africans and African-Americans in the New World, in slavery and in freedom; the rise of anti-slavery movements; and the socio-economic systems that replaced slavery in the late 19th century.
AAS 7000 Introduction to Africana Studies
Instructor: Nasrin Olla. Mon Wed 3:30-6:00pm, Warner 110.
This is an introductory course that will survey selected recent and classic texts in the interdisciplinary fields of African American, African, and Caribbean Studies. By the end of the course, students will be prepared to identify and understand major themes that have shaped the development of the discipline of Africana Studies. (For graduate students only)
Social Science or History
All majors must take at least one SSH course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Humanities, Race and Politics, or 4000 research.
AAS 2500.001 The Souls of Black Folk
Instructor: Sabrina Pendergrass; TuTh 11-12:15pm, Gibson 241
In this course, we will examine the social organization of African American communities. The intellectual context for the issues we will study come from the foundational work of sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, and others. We will discuss African Americans’ social status and experiences at the intersections of class, color, gender, and sexuality. We also will study institutions within the community, and we will consider social issues that African Americans face today and will face in the future.
AAS 3500.001 The Health of Black Women & Children
Instructor: Liana Richardson TuTh 9:30-10:45pm New Cabell 407
In this course, we will consider why it is the case that Black women and children have higher rates of adverse health outcomes, including but not limited to maternal and infant mortality, than their white counterparts. Applying both life course and intersectionality perspectives on health, we will examine how social factors structure the lived experiences of Black women and their children and, in turn, influence mental and physical health throughout the life course and across generations. We will review and evaluate evidence from research on the adverse mental and physical health effects of historical trauma, adverse childhood experiences, cumulative social stress (“weathering”), and the “strong Black woman” archetype, among other social phenomena. Then, we will discuss what medicine and public health can (or should) do to improve the health and well-being of Black women and children and, therefore, to halt the intergenerational reproduction of health and social inequality.
AAS 3500.004 Race and America’s ‘Good War’
Instructor: Anna Duensing, Wed 6:00-8:30pm New Cabell 132
World War II is often commemorated in the United States as "The Good War," a conflict of good versus evil dedicated to preserving and spreading democracy around the world. This mythic framing not only fails to account for the reality of the war itself but also reveals much about postwar memory politics. This course explores the history of U.S. involvement in World War II and its aftermath with a focus on questions of race and racism, citizenship and national belonging, U.S. militarism, U.S. imperialism, and the politics of the past.
HIAF 2001 Early African History
Instructor: James La Fleur; Tu Th 3:30-4:45, Nau 211
Studies the history of African civilizations from the iron age through the era of the slave trade, ca. 1800. Emphasizes the search for the themes of social, political, economic, and intellectual history which present African civilizations on their own terms. (Also fulfills Africa requirement)
HIAF 3021 History of Southern Africa
Instructor: John Mason; Mon Wed 3:30-4:45pm, McLeod 1004
Studies the history of Africa generally south of the Zambezi River. Emphasizes African institutions, creation of ethnic and racial identities, industrialization, and rural poverty, from the early formation of historical communities to recent times. Also fulfills Africa requirement)
HIAF 3112 African Environmental History
Instructor: James La Fleur; Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, New Cabell 368
This course explores how Africans changed their interactions with the physical environments they inhabited and how the landscapes they helped create in turn shaped human history. Topics covered include the ancient agricultural revolution, health and disease in the era of slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, 20th-century wildlife conservation, and the emergent challenges of land ownership, disease, and climate change. (Also fulfills Africa requirement)
HIAF 3559 Muslim Societies in African History
Instructor: Amir Syed; Tu Th 11:00-12:15pm, New Cabell 232
HIUS 3490 From Motown to Hip-Hop
Instructor: Claudrena Harold; Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, Gilmer 390
This survey traces the history of African American popular music from the late 1950s to the current era. It examines the major sonic innovations in the genres of soul, funk, and hip-hop over the course of the semester, students will examine how musical expression has provided black women and men with an outlet for individual expression, community building, sexual pleasure, political organizing, economic uplift, and interracial interaction.
HIUS 3671 African American Freedom Movements 1945-Present
Instructor: Kevin Gaines; TuTh 3:30-4:45, Gibson 141
This course examines the history and legacy of the African American struggle for civil rights in twentieth century America. It provides students with a broad overview of the civil rights movement -- the key issues, significant people and organizations, and pivotal events -- as well as a deeper understanding of its scope, influence, legacy, and lessons for today.
MEST 3492 The Afro-Arabs and Africans of the Middle East and North Africa
Instructor: Nizar Hermes, Mon 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell 338
This course offers an in-depth exploration of the literary representation and cultural construction of Black Afro-Arabs and Africans in premodern Arabic sources ranging from boasting epistles
(mufākharāt) and travel literature to poetry and –-chiefly—popular sagas/folktales (siyar shaʿabiyyah) which turned into pseudo-historical literary and cultural epics/romances. We will sample the works of some of the most “Arab-washed,” literary and intellectual icons in the history of MENA (SWANA), featuring Black heroes, poets, and knights. We will situate these texts in such contexts as the Zanj rebellion (869–883) in Iraq; the reign of Abū al-Misk Kāfūr (946-968), the black slave turned into vizier then sultan of Ikshīdid Egypt and the Levant; the Saharian Afro-Amazigh dynasties of North Africa and al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia) and their eleventh century invasion of the West African empire of Ghana; the sixteenth-century Moroccan imperial forays into the Songhai realms and the invasion of Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné, the elite African army of the Afro-Arab sultan Mulāy Ismāʿīl of Morocco (r.672 to 1727), the great Swahili city-Sultanates of East Africa (Mogadishu, Kilwa, and Mombasa), the richly symbiotic Afro-Arab Swahili language and culture, and the pioneering 1846 abolition of slavery in the regency of Tunisia. (Also fulfills Africa requirement)
Humanities
All majors must take at least one Humanities course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Social Science/History, Race and Politics, or 4000 research.
AAS 2224.001 Black Femininities and Masculinities in the US Media
Section I: Instructor—Lisa Shutt; Tues 2-4:30pm New Cabell 111
Section II: Instructor—Lisa Shutt; Wed 2-4:30pm New Cabell 291
This course will address the role the media has played in creating images and understandings of “Blackness” in the United States, particularly where it converges with popular ideologies about gender. We will explore how different media, including feature films, popular television, documentaries, popular fiction, television, and print news media create categories of race and gender in different ways for (different) Americans – each medium encapsulating its own markers of legitimacy and expertise – each negotiating its own ideas of authorship and audience. We will concentrate on the particular ways various media produce, display, and disseminate information; in particular, we will be analyzing cultural texts, the cultural environment in which they have been produced, and the audience reception of those texts. Finally, we will ask what responsibilities those who create and circulate information have – and whether or not the consuming/viewing public shares in any sort of responsibility. This class will enable students to cultivate theoretical tools and critical perspectives to analyze and question the influence of the popular media that saturate our lives.
AAS 2500-002 Introduction to African Languages and Literatures
Instructor: Anne Rotich; Mon Wed Fri 1:00 pm - 1:50 pm, Wilson 238
This course is a survey of literary texts in English by contemporary African writers. Students will develop an appreciation for literatures and languages of Africa and an understanding of issues that preoccupy African writers and the literary strategies that they employ in their work. Students will read a variety of texts including novels, short stories, poetry, film and songs and critically analyze the cultural and aesthetics of the literary landscape. Particular attention will be on how authors engage themes such as identity, patriarchy, gender, class, and politics in post-colonial structures. Students are expected to actively engage in an analysis and exploration of the required literary works and to express their responses through class discussions, reflections, group presentations and the writing of analytical digital stories. (Also fulfills Africa requirement)
AAS 3500.002 Reading Black Digital Culture
Instructor: Ashleigh Wade-Green. Tu Th 9:30-10:45am, New Cabell 332.
Using a mix of scholarly and popular-press readings and an examination of digital artifacts, we will analyze the creations and contributions of Black digital culture from the mid-90s to the present. Topics we will cover include: the early Black blogosphere, the creation of niche content sites like BlackPlanet.com, the emergence of Black Twitter, the circulation of memes, and the use second-screening.
AAS 3710.001 African Worlds through Life Stories
Instructor: Lisa Shutt; Th 2:00-4:30pm. Warner 113
This course examines an array of African cultural worlds from the perspective of a variety of different life story genres. We will be addressing biography, autobiography, autofiction, memoirs, diaries, biographical documentary film and various artistic representations. Some critics claim that such genres, concentrating on the “individual” in Western terms, are not appropriate for representing African experiences of personhood. While critically examining these genres as well as the authorship of texts, we will also be examining representations of worldviews, social and political structures and organization, conceptualizations of time and space, social change, gender, kinship, ritual, etc. through the lens of each life history and joined by supplemental historical and ethnographic readings. For each life narrative we examine, we will ask what authors are seeking to transmit. Reality? Truth? Or something else? We will also ask what reading audiences expect to receive from such narratives. We will discuss whether the narratives we address are stories expressing the uniqueness of particular individuals or whether they are representative lifeways of members of particular socio-political groups – or both – or neither. (Also fulfills Africa requirement)
FREN 3032 Writing Black Francophone Literature and Performances
Instructor: Rashana Lydner, Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, New Cabell 209
This course looks at the literary, political, and artistic works of Black francophone writers, theorists, and performers. Together, we will read and discuss how Black people across the francophone world express themselves through poetry, theater, novels, comics, film, and music. Students will develop interpretative and analytical skills with broad applicability and practice writing in French in a clear and persuasive manner.
MUEN 2690 / 3690 African Music and Dance Ensemble Level 1 and 2
Instructor: Michelle Kisliuk; Tu Th 5:00-6:15pm, Old Cabell 107
A practical, hands-on course focusing on several music/dance forms from West Africa (Ghana, Togo) and Central Africa (BaAka), with the intention of performing during and at the end of the semester. Traditions include drumming, dancing, and singing. Concentration, practice, and faithful attendance are required. (Also fulfills Africa requirement)
RELA 2400 Introduction to Africana Religions
Instructor: Ashon Crawley; Mon 2:00-4:30pm, Warner 113
This is an introductory survey course exploring the topic of Africana religions generally, including the practices of spirituality of black people in the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe and on the continent of Africa. Particular attention will be paid to the relations between these various locations, and their similarities and differences. We will listen to music, watch film, read fiction, poetry, sacred texts and works of criticism.
RELA/ RELI 3900 Introduction to Islam in Africa through the Arts
Instructor: Oludamini Ogunnaike; TuTh 12:30-1:45pm; Gibson 141
This course will survey the history of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa through their arts. Covering three periods (Precolonial, Colonial, and Post-colonial), and four geographic regions (North, East, West, and Southern Africa), the course will explore the various forms and functions of Islamic arts on the continent. Through these artistic works and traditions we will explore the politics, cultures, and worldviews of African Muslim societies. (Also fulfills Africa requirement)
RELC 3222 From Jefferson to King
Instructor: Mark Hadley; Tu Th 2:00-3:15pm; Nau 141
A seminar focused upon some of the most significant philosophical and religious thinkers that have shaped and continued to shape American religious thought and culture from the founding of the Republic to the Civil Rights Movement, including Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Addams, William James, Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King, Jr. We will explore how their thought influenced the social and cultural currents of their time.
WGS 3125 Transnational Feminism
Instructor: Tiffany King, Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, Bryan 235
This course places women, feminism, and activism in a transnational perspective, and offers students the opportunity to examine how issues considered critical to the field of gender studies are impacting women's lives globally in contemporary national contexts. We will look closely at how violence, economic marginality, intersections of race and gender, and varied strategies for development are affecting women in specific geographical locations.
Race and Politics
All majors must take at least one Race & Politics course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Humanities, Social Science/History, or 4000 research.
AAS 3500.003 Black & Indigenous Power in the US
Instructor: Amber Henry, Tues 6:00-8:30pm; New Cabell 309
How does it feel to be empowered? How does it feel to have that power taken away? Mobilizing the concept of "dreams" as a way of imagining an alternate future, this course contemplates the ways in which Black & Brown people create political projects, social networks and strategies of care to dream a life beyond the legacies of colonialism and Trans-Atlantic slavery. Engaging recent theories of sovereignty (personal autonomy and self-governance), the first half of the course explores how Black & Indigenous people create community in ways that challenge the power of the modern nation-state. The second half of the class examines how Black & Indigenous people are disenfranchised in ways that echo the historical legacies of colonialism, Trans-Atlantic slavery, genocide and anti-Blackness. Rather than adapt a purely historical, economic or political perspective, this course places strong emphasis on affect, or the critical study of feelings, in order to explore what power--as well as its absence-- feel likes. In this way, this course locates the individual body as the site at which claims to power are contemplated, contested and creatively envisioned.
AAS 3853 From Redlined to Subprime: Race and Real Estate in the US
Instructor: Andrew Kahrl; Mon Wed 9:00-9:50am, Wilson 301
This course examines the history of housing and real estate and explores its role in shaping the meaning and lived experience of race in modern America. We will learn how and why real estate ownership, investment, and development came to play a critical role in the formation and endurance of racial segregation, modern capitalism, and the built environment.
SOC 3410 Race and Ethnic Relations
Instructor: Milton Vickerman; MoWe 2-3:15pm, New Cabell 232
Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation. Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials.
SOC 4078 Racism and Democracy
Instructor Ian Mullins; TuTh 9-910:45am, New Cabell 415
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (Feb 23, 1868-Aug 27, 1963) was a uniquely American scholar and activist whose work has renewed significance today. His analysis of the US reveals both the social causes and consequences of racial stratification, while his political activism offers possible solutions. A controversial figure in his time, he helped to found the American sociological discipline and yet was marginalized within it.
WGS 2125 Race & Power in Gender & Sexuality
Instructor: Lisa Speidel; Mon Wed 1:00 -1:50pm, Warner 104
Offers a study of race-racialization in relation to gender-sexuality. We will consider how the concept of race shapes relationships between gendered selfhood & society, how it informs identity & experiences of the erotic, & how racialized gender & sexuality are created, maintained and monitored. With an interdisciplinary perspective, we will consider how race & power are reproduced & resisted through gender & sexuality, individually-national-international.
Africa
All majors must take at least one Africa course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement can double count with any other distribution.
AAS 2500.002 Introduction to African Languages and Literatures
Instructor: Anne Rotich; Mon Wed Fri 1:00-1:50 pm, Wilson 238
This course is a survey of literary texts in English by contemporary African writers. Students will develop an appreciation for literatures and languages of Africa and an understanding of issues that preoccupy African writers and the literary strategies that they employ in their work. Students will read a variety of texts including novels, short stories, poetry, film and songs and critically analyze the cultural and aesthetics of the literary landscape. Particular attention will be on how authors engage themes such as identity, patriarchy, gender, class, and politics in post-colonial structures. Students are expected to actively engage in an analysis and exploration of the required literary works and to express their responses through class discussions, reflections, group presentations and the writing of analytical digital stories.
AAS 3710.001 African Worlds through Life Stories
Instructor: Lisa Shutt; Th 2:00-4:30pm. Warner 113
This course examines an array of African cultural worlds from the perspective of a variety of different life story genres. We will be addressing biography, autobiography, autofiction, memoirs, diaries, biographical documentary film and various artistic representations. Some critics claim that such genres, concentrating on the “individual” in Western terms, are not appropriate for representing African experiences of personhood. While critically examining these genres as well as the authorship of texts, we will also be examining representations of worldviews, social and political structures and organization, conceptualizations of time and space, social change, gender, kinship, ritual, etc. through the lens of each life history and joined by supplemental historical and ethnographic readings. For each life narrative we examine, we will ask what authors are seeking to transmit. Reality? Truth? Or something else? We will also ask what reading audiences expect to receive from such narratives. We will discuss whether the narratives we address are stories expressing the uniqueness of particular individuals or whether they are representative lifeways of members of particular socio-political groups – or both – or neither.
HIAF 2001 Early African History
Instructor: James La Fleur; Tu Th 3:30-4:45pm, Nau 211
Studies the history of African civilizations from the iron age through the era of the slave trade, ca. 1800. Emphasizes the search for the themes of social, political, economic, and intellectual history which present African civilizations on their own terms.
HIAF 3021 History of Southern Africa
Instructor: John Mason; Mon Wed 3:30-4:45pm, McLeod 1004
Studies the history of Africa generally south of the Zambezi River. Emphasizes African institutions, creation of ethnic and racial identities, industrialization, and rural poverty, from the early formation of historical communities to recent times.
HIAF 3112 African Environmental History
Instructor: James La Fleur; Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, New Cabell 368
This course explores how Africans changed their interactions with the physical environments they inhabited and how the landscapes they helped create in turn shaped human history. Topics covered include the ancient agricultural revolution, health and disease in the era of slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, 20th-century wildlife conservation, and the emergent challenges of land ownership, disease, and climate change.
HIAF 3559 Muslim Societies in African History
Instructor: Amir Syed; Tu Th 11-12:50pm, New Cabell 232
MEST 3492 The Afro-Arabs and Africans of the Middle East and North Africa
Instructor: Nizar Hermes, Mon 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell 338
This course offers an in-depth exploration of the literary representation and cultural construction of Black Afro-Arabs and Africans in premodern Arabic sources ranging from boasting epistles
(mufākharāt) and travel literature to poetry and –-chiefly—popular sagas/folktales (siyar shaʿabiyyah) which turned into pseudo-historical literary and cultural epics/romances. We will sample the works of some of the most “Arab-washed,” literary and intellectual icons in the history of MENA (SWANA), featuring Black heroes, poets, and knights. We will situate these texts in such contexts as the Zanj rebellion (869–883) in Iraq; the reign of Abū al-Misk Kāfūr (946-968), the black slave turned into vizier then sultan of Ikshīdid Egypt and the Levant; the Saharian Afro-Amazigh dynasties of North Africa and al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia) and their eleventh century invasion of the West African empire of Ghana; the sixteenth-century Moroccan imperial forays into the Songhai realms and the invasion of Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné, the elite African army of the Afro-Arab sultan Mulāy Ismāʿīl of Morocco (r.672 to 1727), the great Swahili city-Sultanates of East Africa (Mogadishu, Kilwa, and Mombasa), the richly symbiotic Afro-Arab Swahili language and culture, and the pioneering 1846 abolition of slavery in the regency of Tunisia.
MUEN 2690 / 3690 African Music and Dance Ensemble Level 1 and 2
Instructor: Michelle Kisliuk; Tu Th 5:00-6:15pm, Old Cabell 107
A practical, hands-on course focusing on several music/dance forms from West Africa (Ghana, Togo) and Central Africa (BaAka), with the intention of performing during and at the end of the semester. Traditions include drumming, dancing, and singing. Concentration, practice, and faithful attendance are required.
4000-Level Research
All majors must take at least one course at the 4000-level that requires a 20-page research paper or its equivalent (digital, audio or other creative project with substantive research and scaffolded assignments). Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Humanities, Race and Politics, or Social Science/History. For courses outside of AAS, kindly confirm with the instructor before / at the start of classes that the course meets the research requirements listed above.
AAS 4570.02 Black Performance Theory
Instructor: Ashon Crawley Wed 3:30-6:00pm, Warner 113
In this course we will discuss the concepts performance, performativity and authenticity with regard to race, gender, sexuality and class. We do so by considering the various theoretical histories and trajectories for the word performance and how it has been taken up by thinkers in Black Studies.
ENGL 5700 Contemporary African-American Literature
Instructor: Lisa Woolfork, Tu Th 8:00-9:15am, New Cabell 042
This course for advanced undergraduates and master’s-level graduate students surveys African American literature today. Assignments include works by Everett, Edward Jones, Tayari Jones, Evans, Ward, Rabateau, and Morrison.
HIUS 4501.002 The History of Black Education in the US
Instructor: Erica Sterling; Wed 2:00-4:30pm, Gibson 241
From clandestine education during the Antebellum era to the student movement for Black studies programs in the 1960s and 1970s, education has been at the center of social and political reform in the United States, particularly in the Black community. However, the structure of their education has been influenced and shaped by several debates: public vs. private, masculine vs. feminine, secular vs. non-secular, and liberal arts vs. industrial, which has, for better or worse, shaped the Black experience. The goal of the seminar is to introduce the history of education for Black Americans and unpack various events and perspectives in the community to show not only how education influenced their lives but how they used their institutions as workshops for economic, political, and social equity. A variety of topics will be covered, including gender, education, race, religion, social movements, policies, and politics. Primary and secondary sources, as well as movies, images, and short films, will be discussed in this course. Students are expected to complete an independent project.
HIUS 5559 Urban History
Instructor: Andrew Kahrl; Mon 2:00-4:30pm, Gibson 241
MEST 5492 The Afro-Arabs and Africans of the Middle East and North Africa
Instructor: Nizar Hermes, Mon 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell 338
This course offers an in-depth exploration of the literary representation and cultural construction of Black Afro-Arabs and Africans in premodern Arabic sources ranging from boasting epistles
(mufākharāt) and travel literature to poetry and –-chiefly—popular sagas/folktales (siyar shaʿabiyyah) which turned into pseudo-historical literary and cultural epics/romances. We will sample the works of some of the most “Arab-washed,” literary and intellectual icons in the history of MENA (SWANA), featuring Black heroes, poets, and knights. We will situate these texts in such contexts as the Zanj rebellion (869–883) in Iraq; the reign of Abū al-Misk Kāfūr (946-968), the black slave turned into vizier then sultan of Ikshīdid Egypt and the Levant; the Saharian Afro-Amazigh dynasties of North Africa and al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia) and their eleventh century invasion of the West African empire of Ghana; the sixteenth-century Moroccan imperial forays into the Songhai realms and the invasion of Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné, the elite African army of the Afro-Arab sultan Mulāy Ismāʿīl of Morocco (r.672 to 1727), the great Swahili city-Sultanates of East Africa (Mogadishu, Kilwa, and Mombasa), the richly symbiotic Afro-Arab Swahili language and culture, and the pioneering 1846 abolition of slavery in the regency of Tunisia.
MDST 4670 White Out: Screening White Supremacy
Instructor: William Little; Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, Gibson 242
This course entails critical examination of white supremacy through study of film and photography. Students analyze how cinema has traditionally privileged the property of whiteness and white patriarchal power through narrative and formal conventions: e.g., by framing white spaces, white bodies, and the white male gaze as superior; by objectifying, seizing, and rendering invisible people of color and women; by manipulation of lighting and color; by racially charged construction and projection of the face. This analysis is amplified by consideration of links between white supremacist cinema and the history of photographic portraiture. Students study how photography, like film, has been instrumentalized and archived to honor—to monumentalize—white experience, while abjecting, invalidating, and erasing the experience of others. Against this backdrop, the course organizes exploration of films and photographs that challenge white supremacy. Special attention is given to visual texts that expose the dynamics of white supremacy through nuanced dramatization of its underpinnings: the violent erotics, religious longings, and binary logic that inform racist thought; anxiety about colorful elements coded as threats to the integrity of white spaces and white bodies; media infrastructures, such as surveillance systems, designed to protect white power. Horror film affords important cinematic illustrations of these underpinnings. The course includes several examples, such as recent films Green Room (2016) and Get Out (2017). The syllabus also includes revisionary photographic work that outs white supremacy, such Ken Gonzales-Day’s Erased Lynching series and Carrie Mae Weems’ Roaming series. Students are required to produce an extensive project at end of term. The outcome may be a creative project with an accompanying extensive critical reflection.
MUSI 4065 The Black Voice
Instructor: A.D. Carson; Tu 2:00-4:30pm, New Cabell 398
This course focuses on critical analyses of and questions concerning the ‘Black Voice’ as it pertains to hip-hop culture, particularly rap and related popular musics. Students will read, analyze, and discuss a wide range of thinkers to explore many conceptions and definitions of ‘Blackness’ while examining popular artists and the statements they make in and about their art.
RELA 4085 Christian Missions in Contemporary Africa
Instructor: Cynthia Hoehler Fatton; Tu 3:30-6pm, Gibson 142
An examination of Christian missions in Africa in the 21st Century. Through a variety of disciplinary lenses and approaches, we examine faith-based initiatives in Africa--those launched from abroad, as well as from within the continent. What does it mean to be a missionary in Africa today? How are evangelizing efforts being transformed in response to democratization, globalization and a growing awareness of human rights?
WGS 4820 Black Feminist Theory
Instructor: Lanice Avery; Tu 3:30-6:00pm, Wilson 244
This course critically examines key ideas, issues, and debates in contemporary Black feminist thought. With a particular focus on Black feminist understandings of intersectionality and womanism, the course examines how Black feminist thinkers interrogate specific concepts including Black womanhood, sexual mythologies and vulnerabilities, class distinctions, colorism, leadership, crime and punishment, and popular culture.
Languages and Other Electives
SWAH 1010 Introductory Swahili I
Section I—Instructor: Leonora Anyango; Mon Wed Fri 10:00 am – 10:50 am (Web)
Section II—Instructor: Anne Rotich; Mon Wed Fri 11:00 am - 11:50 am, Wilson 238
This course is intended for students with no previous experience with Swahili. The course provides an introduction to basic Swahili language skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Swahili is the most widely spoken language in eastern Africa. SWAH 1010 provides a foundation for listening, speaking and writing basic Swahili grammatical structures and vocabulary. By the end of this course you will be able to construct simple Swahili sentences, identify with various cultural aspects and customs of Swahili speakers, and have a basic level of oral proficiency. We will have fun learning the language as we engage in dialogues, group activities and perform some cultural skits.
SWAH 2010 Intermediate Swahili I
Section I—Instructor: Anne Rotich. MoWeFr 12-12:50pm, Wilson 238
Section I—Instructor: Anne Rotich. MoWeFr 12-12:50pm, Web
This is an intermediate level course designed for students who have taken SWAH 1010 or prior Swahili language experience to further enhance grammatical skills, and an emphasis on speaking and writing through a reading of Swahili texts.
Spring 2023 Undergraduate Courses
Course Descriptions
View current course listings page
Spring 2023
These course listings are subject to change. Courses with low enrollment may be canceled. The official system of record at the University of Virginia is the Student Information System (SIS). www.virginia.edu/sis. Make sure to discuss your curricular plan and academic progress report with your AAS major advisor during Advising Period, October 24 to November 4.
Core Courses
All majors and minors must complete the 1010 and 1020 core course sequence.
AAS 1020 – Introduction to African-American and African Studies II.
Prof. Ashon Crawley. Tu, Th 12:30-1:45pm , Nau 101
This introductory course surveys the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean from approximately the Middle Ages to the 1880s. Emphases include the Atlantic slave trade and its complex relationship to Africa; the economic systems, cultures, and communities of Africans and African-Americans in the New World, in slavery and in freedom; the rise of anti-slavery movements; and the socio-economic systems that replaced slavery in the late 19th century. Fulfills: 1010/1020 requirement
HIAF 1501 Introductory Seminar in African History: Runaways, Rebels, and Revolutionaries.
Prof. James La Fleur;
Th 4:00-6:30pm, Bryan Hall 235
Introduces the study of history intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history. Fulfills: African Studies Minor requirement
AAS 7000 – Introduction to Africana Studies.
Prof. Nasrin Olla
Mon 3:30-6:00pm. New Cabell 068.
This is an introductory course that will survey key texts in the interdisciplinary fields of African American, African, and Caribbean Studies. By the end of the course, students will be prepared to identify and understand the major themes that have shaped the development of the discipline of Africana Studies. Assignments in the course will help students to develop an understanding of both the methodological and theoretical challenges that prevail in studies of the African Diaspora, such as learning to evaluate sources and to acquire an awareness of, as well as to question, the silences, repressions, omissions, and biases involved in interpreting writing both from and about the African diaspora. Some of the key terms that students will become familiar with are: ethnocentrism, white privilege, race, racism, hegemony, colonialism, imperialism, agency, diaspora, power, identity, modernity, nation, citizenship, sovereignty, and globalization, as well as how these concepts intersect with ideas of both gender and class. NB: For Graduate Students Only
Social Science or History
All majors must take at least one SSH course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Humanities, Race and Politics, or 4000 research.
AAS 3300 Social Science Perspectives on African American and African Studies
Prof. Sabrina Pendergrass. Tu Th 2:00-3:15. New Cabell 183
This course will focus on major debates, theories, and methodological approaches in the social sciences that contribute to African American Studies. The course helps students to consider how a multidisciplinary approach enriches efforts to analyze such issues as housing, education, and incarceration as they relate to the African Diaspora. Fulfills: SSH
AAS 3500.001 Race and Medicine in America from 1960-Present
Prof. Liana Richardson. Tu Th 11:00-12:15. New Cabell 064
In this course, we will examine the medical practices involved in the social construction of racial difference and the persistence of racial health inequities in the U.S. during the last 50 years. Drawing from relevant scholarship in sociology, anthropology, and history, we will discuss the origins and consequences of medical racism, as well as the continued role of medicine in racial meaning-making. Case studies and historical accounts about the (mis)use of race in the clinical encounter and in diagnostic and treatment algorithms, as well as the racialization of various health issues (e.g., obesity, heart disease, and mental illness), will provide illustrative examples. We will also consider why the medicalization of social issues—from collective violence to drug addiction—is often a racialized process, focusing especially on how contrasting schemas of medicalization and criminalization result in the differential labeling and treatment of racial groups as either victims or villains. Lastly, we will discuss the consequences of these phenomena for health equity, social justice, and human/civil rights, as well as the potential strategies for addressing them. Fulfills: SSH
AAS 3500.002 Environmental Justice Across the Globe
Prof. Kimberly Fields.
Wed 6:30-9pm. New Cabell 332
This course examines from multiple perspectives issues of environmental quality and social justice across the globe. We will start from the premise that all people have a right to live in a clean environment free from hazardous pollution or contamination, and to the natural resources necessary to sustain health and livelihood. We will investigate how and why the resources people need to flourish varies across the globe. In some cases, these resources are air, soil or water. In other instances they may include healthy fisheries, forests, or land to farm or graze animals on. With this as our starting point, we will question why, and through what social, political and economic processes, some people are denied this basic right. How is it that certain groups of people do not have access to basic resources, or are systematically burdened with pollution or environmental hazards to a greater extent than other groups? To what extent is environmental inequality a global phenomenon? What explains the patterns in environmental inequality observed throughout the world? What are the social relations of production and power that contribute to these outcomes? What can be done? We begin by examining the relationship between environmental justice and globalization, and the global distribution of environmental benefits and burdens and explanations for that distribution. We then examine struggles for environmental justice in diverse regions of the world, as well as government responses to those struggles. We will explore these issues through a series of case studies of environmental (in)justice in South America, Africa, Asia and the Carribbean. Through these case studies we will examine environmental justice issues in urban and rural settings; the strategies and politics of poor peoples’ environmental justice movements. Fulfills: SSH
AAS 3810. Race, Culture and Inequality
Prof. Sabrina Pendergrass.
Tu Th 11:00-12:15. New Cabell 036
This course will examine how culture matters for understanding race and social inequality. It will survey social science research about cultural forms such as everyday discourse, styles of dress, music, literature, visual arts, and media as they relate to race and inequality. Fulfills: SSH
AMST 2559 Afro-Latinx Histories in the Americas
Prof. Christina Proenza-Coles;
Tu Th 2:00-3:15pm, Brice Hall 235
ADD course desc. Fulfills: SSH
HIAF 2002 Modern African History
Prof. John Mason;
Tu Th 9:30-10:45am, Gibson Hall 211
Studies the history of Africa and its interaction with the western world from the mid-19th century to the present. Emphasizes continuities in African civilization from imperialism to independence that transcend the colonial interlude of the 20th century. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 3031 History of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Prof. Amir Syed;
Tu Th 9:30-10:45am, Clark Hall G004
This course concerns the trans-Atlantic slave trade, with an emphasis on African history. Through interactive lectures, in-class discussions, written assignments and examinations of first-hand accounts by slaves and slavers, works of fiction and film, and analyses by historians, we will seek to understand one of the most tragic and horrifying phenomena in the history of the western world. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 3051 West African History
Prof. James La Fleur;
Tu Th 11:00-12:15am, Clark Hall 101
History of West Africans in the wider context of the global past, from West Africans' first attempts to make a living in ancient environments through the slave trades (domestic, trans-Saharan, and Atlantic), colonial overrule by outsiders, political independence, and ever-increasing globalization. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 3112 African Environment History
Prof. James La Fleur;
Tu Th 2:00-3:15pm, Nau Hall 141
This course explores how Africans changed their interactions with the physical environments they inhabited and how the landscapes they helped create in turn shaped human history. Topics covered include the ancient agricultural revolution, health and disease in the era of slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, 20th-century wildlife conservation, and the emergent challenges of land ownership, disease, and climate change. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 4501 Photography and Freedom in Africa
Prof. John Mason;
Mo 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell Hall 032
Photography and Freedom in Africa, blends African history, American history, and the history of photography to explore the ways in which both African and western photographers shaped and misshaped the world's understanding of Africa during the era of anti-colonial struggles and the Cold War. Fulfills:
HIST 3501 Introductory History Workshop: Race, Religion, & Resistance in Atlantic History
Prof. Amir Syed;
Th 2:00-4:30pm, The Rotunda Room 150
This course introduces students to how historians conceptualize the Atlantic World and approach the entangled histories of Europe, Africa, and the Americas from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Students will learn how to ask historical questions, examine issues on the production of historical narratives, and interpret documents. Fulfills: SSH
HIUS 3232 The South in the Twentieth Century
Prof. Grace Hale;
Mo We, 1:00pm-1:50pm John Warner Hall 104
Studies the history of the South from 1900 to the present focusing on class structure, race relations, cultural traditions, and the question of southern identity Fulfills: SSH
HIUS 3501 Race, Place, and the Schoolhouse
Prof. Erica Sterling;
We 2:00-4:30pm, Memorial Gym 213
Few things evoke more emotion from the U.S. electorate than assertions of state control over how and where children are educated. Using 20th century black educational history as our guide, students will learn how urban, gender, or cultural historians, for example, use different methodologies to answer similar questions about access, equity, and power. Fulfills: SSH
SOC 3410 Race and Ethnic Relations
Prof. Milton Vickerman;
Mo We 2:00-3:15pm, New Cabell Hall 032
Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation. Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials. Fulfills: SSH
SOC 4260 Race, Crime and Punishment
Prof. Rose Buckelew;
Mo We 2:00-3:15pm, New Cabell Hall 032
This course is an exercise in critical thinking and writing. We will investigate connections between race and crime in contemporary America. To do so, we will explore constructions of crime and race and patterns of victimization, criminality and punishment. We will uncover shifting definitions of crime and the ways that institutions, policies and practices shape patterns of punishment. Fulfills: SSH
Humanities
All majors must take at least one Humanities course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Social Science/History, Race and Politics, or 4000 research.
AAS 2224. Black Femininities and Masculinities in the US Media
Prof. Lisa Shutt.
Wed 2:00-4:30pm, New Cabell 395
This course will address the role the media has played in creating images and understandings of “Blackness” in the United States, particularly where it converges with popular ideologies about gender. Concentrating on media texts that have influenced and ‘set the stage’ for today’s media, we will primarily examine media texts from the 1970s through the first decade of the 21st century. We will explore how different media, including feature films, popular television, documentaries, television, and print news media create categories of race and gender in different ways for (different) Americans – each medium encapsulating its own markers of legitimacy and expertise – each negotiating its own ideas of authorship and audience. We will concentrate on the particular ways various media produce, display, and disseminate information; in particular, we will be analyzing cultural texts, the cultural environment in which they have been produced, and the audience reception of those texts. Finally, we will ask what responsibilities those who create and circulate information have – and whether or not the consuming/viewing public shares in any sort of responsibility. This class will enable students to cultivate theoretical tools and critical perspectives to analyze and question the influence of the popular media that saturate our lives. Fulfills: Humanities.
AAS 2500. Swahili Cultures & Stories
Prof. Anne Rotich
This is an introductory course to the Swahili cultures. The course offers an in-depth understanding of the Swahili people, their cultures and history. The course will bring to the fore the diversity of issues concerning the Swahili people and the Swahili coast including music, food, clothing, trade, and the social and political issues. We will also pursue a range of basic questions such as: How have issues of identity, class, ethnicity and race informed Swahili people experiences? How, and in what contexts, did Swahili people confront—and overcome— historical challenges brought by the Arabic and European settlement in East Africa? How have Swahili cultures crossed international borders through the Indian Ocean trade and through globalization? Students will actively engage in an analytical examination of stories from east Africa and other required readings and then express their responses through class discussions, group presentations and write an analytical final paper. Fulfills: Humanities; Africa Requirement
AAS 2559 Black Girlhood and the Media
Prof. Ashleigh Wade.
Tu Th 9:30-10:45am, New Cabell 338
How do movies, viral videos, and memes impact the material lives of Black girls? This course offers an introduction to the emergent and growing field of Black Girlhood Studies, especially in relation to media representation and engagement. The course will cover foundational texts about Black girlhood alongside a range of media – newspapers, magazines, film, and Internet/social media content – to explore the ways in which Black girlhood has been constructed and portrayed through these platforms. We will use these explorations as a way of 1) understanding the tenets of Black girlhood studies and 2) identifying what is at stake in documenting and representing Black girls’ experiences. As part of the course, students will have an opportunity to create their own media/text (YouTube video, website/blog, essay collection, chapbook, etc.) about Black girlhood. Fulfills: Humanities
AMST 2753/ARTH 2753 Arts and Cultures of the Slave South
Prof. Louis Nelson;
Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, Gilmer Hall 301
This interdisciplinary course covers the American South to the Civil War. While the course centers on the visual arts, architecture, material culture, decorative arts, painting, and sculpture; it is not designed as a regional history of art, but an exploration of the interrelations between history, material and visual cultures, foodways, music and literature in the formation of Southern identities. Fulfills: Humanities
AMST 3321 Race and Ethnicity in Latinx Literature
Prof. Carmen Lamas
Mo 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell Hall 323
Surveys transformations in Africa from four million years ago to the present, known chiefly through archaeology, and focusing on Stone and Iron Age societies in the last 150,000 years. Prerequisite: ANTH 2800 or instructor permission. Fulfills: Humanities
AMST 3407 Racial Borders and American Cinema
Prof. Shilpa Dave;
Mo We 2:00-3:15pm, Brice Hall 235
This class explores how re-occurring images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans and Latino/as are represented in film and shows visual images of racial interactions and boundaries of human relations that tackle topics such as immigration, inter-racial relationships and racial passing. Fulfills: Humanities
AMST 3427 Gender, Things, and Difference
Prof. Jessica Sewell;
Mo We 2:00-3:15pm, Gibson Hall 242
This class explores how material culture, the physical stuff that is part of human life, is used to help to construct and express gendered and other forms of difference. We will look at how bodies and clothes shape our understanding of our own and others’ identities, how we imbue objects with gender, how the food we cook and eat carries cultural meanings, and how the design of buildings and spaces structures gender. Fulfills: Humanities
AMST 3559.001 Mapping Black Landscapes
Prof. Lisa Goff;
Tu 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell Hall 323
Course description pending: Fufills
ANTH 3880 African Archaeology
Prof. Zach McKeeby;
Mo We Fr 10:00-10:50am, New Cabell Hall 383
Surveys transformations in Africa from four million years ago to the present, known chiefly through archaeology, and focusing on Stone and Iron Age societies in the last 150,000 years. Prerequisite: ANTH 2800 or instructor permission. Fulfills: Humanities; Africa
DRAM 4590.002 The Black Monologues
Prof. Theresa Davis;
TBA, TBA Hall TBA
A directed project-based study offered to upper-level students. Fulfills: Humanities
ENGL 3025 African American English
Prof. Connie Smith;
Tu Th 11:00-12:15pm, New Cabell Hall 287
This course examines the communicative practices of African American Vernacular English (AAEV) to explore how a marginalized language dynamic has made major transitions into American mainstream discourse. AAEV is no longer solely the informal speech of many African Americans; it is the way Americans speak. Fulfills: Humanities
FRT 3559 Black France Musicscape: Race, Space, Gender and Language Across The French-Speaking World
Prof. Rashana Lydner
Tu Thur 3:30 - 4:45pm
This interdisciplinary course examines the impact of music and language use in the Black Francophone world. It provides students an opportunity to explore, think critically, and discuss issues on cultural expression from multilingual communities in West and Central Africa, the French Caribbean, and mainland France. We will engage with key terms such as the Black Atlantic, la francophone, authenticity, creolization, globalization, and multilingualism. To do this, we will read various texts, listen to and analyze music and music videos from genres such as coupé décalé, ndombolo/soukous, afro beats, pop, hip hop/ rap, zouk, dancehall and reggae. Throughout the semester, we will think about the importance of race, space, gender and language in the formation of a Black France Musicscape. Fulfills: Humanities
MDST 3407 Racial Borders & American Cinema
Prof. Shilpa Dave;
Mo We 9:00-9:50am, Gilmer Hall 390
The history of American cinema is inextricably and controversially tied to the racial politics of the U.S. This course will explore how images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans and Latino/as are reflected on screen and the ways that minorities in the entertainment industry have responded to often limiting representations. Prerequisite: MDST Major. Fulfills: Humanities
MDST 3510.003 Topics in Media Research: Race and Digital Media Studies
Prof. Pallavi Rao;
Tu 3:30-6:00pm, Bryan Hall 325
This hands-on course prepares students to read, evaluate, and design research in media studies. Drawing on critical, historical, administrative, and industrial traditions in the field, students will learn to assess the validity and anticipate the ethical requirements of various methods & data collection procedures. Following a theme selected by the instructor, the course culminates with each student proposing a new, original research study. Fulfills: Humanities
RELA 2750 African Religions
Prof. Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton;
Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, Gibson Hall 141
Introduces the mythology, ritual, philosophy, and religious art of the traditional religions of sub-Saharan Africa, also African versions of Christianity and African-American religions in the New World. Fulfills: Humanities; Africa
RELA 3730 Religious Themes in African Literature and Film
Prof. Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton;
Tu 3:30-6:00pm, Gibson Hall 142
An exploration of religious concepts, practices and issues as addressed in African literature and film. We will examine how various African authors and filmmakers weave aspects of Muslim, Christian and/or traditional religious cultures into the stories they tell. Course materials will be drawn from novels, memoirs, short stories, creation myths, poetry, feature-length movies, documentaries and short films. Fulfills: Humanities; Africa
RELG 3405 Introduction to Black and Womanist Religious Thought
Prof. Ashon Crawley;
Mo 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell Hall 168
Is thought always already racialized, gendered, sexed? This Introduction to Black and Womanist Thought course argues that thought does not have to submit itself to modern regimes of knowledge production, that there are alternative ways to think and practice and be in the world with one another. An introduction to major thinkers in both religious thought and traditions with attention to theology, philosophy, and history. Fulfills: Humanities
RELG 3713 Black Religion and Criminal Justice System
Prof. Kai Parker;
Tu Th 3:30-4:45pm, Nau Hall 141
ADD course desc. Fulfills: Humanities
Race and Politics
All majors must take at least one Race & Politics course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Humanities, Social Science/History, or 4000 research.
AAS 2500.002 Introduction to Race, Class, Politics & the Environment
Kimberly Fields. Wed 3:30-6:00pm. New Cabell 489
This course introduces students to the adoption and implementation of environmental policy in the United States and examines issues of environmental quality and social justice. We will concentrate on federal, state and local governance and relations across these levels. In turn, we will compare the abilities of state and federal governments to develop and implement environmental efforts and policy, as well as their consequences. The course takes as axiomatic the premise that all people have a right to live in a clean environment free from hazardous pollution or contamination, and to the natural resources necessary to sustain health and livelihood. With this as our starting point, we will question why, and through what social, political and economic processes, some people are denied this basic right. How is it that certain populations of people do not have access to basic resources, or are systematically burdened with pollution or environmental hazards to a greater extent than other populations? What are the social relations of production and power that contribute to these outcomes? What can be done? We begin by examining the philosophical foundations and history of the environmental justice movement and foundational concepts such as justice, race and class. We then explore these concepts through a series of case studies of urban environmental (in)justice in the U.S. Through these case studies we will examine environmental justice issues in urban and rural settings; the strategies and politics of poor peoples’ environmental justice movements; and climate justice. Fulfills: Race and Politics
AAS 2500.003 Race, Class and Gender
Prof. Liana Richardson
Tu Th 9:30-10:45am, New Cabell 323
While many people in the United States embrace the rhetoric of equality, “the American Dream,” and “the land of opportunity,” social inequality by race, class, and gender is a persistent feature of our society. The overall goal of this course is to examine the social, political, and economic forces that cause and are produced by this inequality, paying particular attention to how race, class, and gender intersect to shape lived experiences and life chances. First, we will discuss how power and privilege are patterned by race, class, and gender. Then, we will examine how the resultant inequalities are perpetuated and reinforced by social institutions such as the labor market, housing, health care, media, and criminal justice system. Finally, we will consider potential strategies for disrupting these linkages, and the social justice politics associated with them. Fulfills: Race and Politics/SSH.
AAS 3853. From Redlined to Subprime: Race and Real Estate in the US
Prof. Andrew Karhl
Mon Wed 9:00-9:50. Ridley G008
This course examines the history of housing and real estate and explores its role in shaping the meaning and lived experience of race in the United States. We will learn how and why real estate ownership, investment, and development came to play a critical role in the formation and endurance of racial segregation, modern capitalism, and the built environment. We will look at how homeownership and residential location shapes the educational options, job prospects, living expenses, health, quality of life, and wealth accumulation of Americans. We will study the structure and mechanics of the American real estate industry, the formation of federal housing policy, and the political economy of housing and development from the New Deal through the civil rights movement to the present. We will explore the dynamic relationship of race and space in twentieth-century cities and suburbs. As we do, we will acquire a deeper knowledge and understanding of how real estate shapes our lives and lies at the heart of many of the most vexing problems and pressing challenges facing America today.
ANTH 2270 Race, Gender, and Medical Science
Prof. Gertrude Fraser;
Mo We 3:00-3:50pm, Minor Hall 125
Explores the social and cultural dimensions of biomedical practice and experience in the United States. Focuses on practitioner and patient, asking about the ways in which race, gender, and socio-economic status contour professional identity and socialization, how such factors influence the experience, and course of, illness, and how they have shaped the structures and institutions of biomedicine over time..
Africa
All majors must take at least one Africa course. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement can double count with any other distribution.
AAS 2500. Swahili Cultures & Stories
Prof. Anne Rotich
This is an introductory course to the Swahili cultures. The course offers an in-depth understanding of the Swahili people, their cultures and history. The course will bring to the fore the diversity of issues concerning the Swahili people and the Swahili coast including music, food, clothing, trade, and the social and political issues. We will also pursue a range of basic questions such as: How have issues of identity, class, ethnicity and race informed Swahili people experiences? How, and in what contexts, did Swahili people confront—and overcome— historical challenges brought by the Arabic and European settlement in East Africa? How have Swahili cultures crossed international borders through the Indian Ocean trade and through globalization? Students will actively engage in an analytical examination of stories from east Africa and other required readings and then express their responses through class discussions, group presentations and write an analytical final paper.
AAS 3500.003. Traveling While Black: Tourism in Africa and Diaspora
Prof. Amber Henry.
Tu 2:00-4:30. New Cabell 383
Reading, class discussion, and written assignments on a special topic in African-American and African Studies Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year students but open to others.
AAS 3559. Africulture: From the African Roots of US Agriculture to Black Farmers in the 21st Century
Mr. Michael Carter, Jr. (with Prof. Lisa Shutt)
Tu 2:00-4:30. New Cabell 303
Led by a practicing farmer-activist, (Michael Carter, Jr. of Carter Farms in nearby Orange County, VA) we will examine how principles, practices, plants, and people of African descent have shaped US agriculture and thus, the lives of all Americans. By examining a wide range of history, laws, attitudes, cultures and traditions, we will see how many US staple commodities and practices have their roots in Africa and observe cultural similarities between indigenous cultures around the world. While evaluating realities of today’s Black farmers and the innovations they devise to survive in a system stacked against them, we will look for solutions to an array of challenges in environmental and agricultural sciences faced by today’s Black farmers.
HIAF 2002 Modern African History
Prof. John Mason;
Tu Th 9:30-10:45am, Gibson Hall 211
Studies the history of Africa and its interaction with the western world from the mid-19th century to the present. Emphasizes continuities in African civilization from imperialism to independence that transcend the colonial interlude of the 20th century. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 3031 History of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Prof. Amir Syed;
Tu Th 9:30-10:45am, Clark Hall G004
This course concerns the trans-Atlantic slave trade, with an emphasis on African history. Through interactive lectures, in-class discussions, written assignments and examinations of first-hand accounts by slaves and slavers, works of fiction and film, and analyses by historians, we will seek to understand one of the most tragic and horrifying phenomena in the history of the western world. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 3051 West African History
Prof. James La Fleur;
Tu Th 11:00-12:15am, Clark Hall 101
History of West Africans in the wider context of the global past, from West Africans' first attempts to make a living in ancient environments through the slave trades (domestic, trans-Saharan, and Atlantic), colonial overrule by outsiders, political independence, and ever-increasing globalization. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 3112 African Environment History
Prof. James La Fleur;
Tu Th 2:00-3:15pm, Nau Hall 141
This course explores how Africans changed their interactions with the physical environments they inhabited and how the landscapes they helped create in turn shaped human history. Topics covered include the ancient agricultural revolution, health and disease in the era of slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, 20th-century wildlife conservation, and the emergent challenges of land ownership, disease, and climate change. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
HIAF 4501 Photography and Freedom in Africa
Prof. John Mason;
Tu Th 2:00-3:15pm, Nau Hall 141
Photography and Freedom in Africa, blends African history, American history, and the history of photography to explore the ways in which both African and western photographers shaped and misshaped the world's understanding of Africa during the era of anti-colonial struggles and the Cold War. Fulfills: SSH; Africa
RELA 2750 African Religions
Prof. Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton;
Tu Th 12:30-1:45pm, Gibson Hall 141
Introduces the mythology, ritual, philosophy, and religious art of the traditional religions of sub-Saharan Africa, also African versions of Christianity and African-American religions in the New World. Fulfills: Humanities; Africa
RELA 3730 Religious Themes in African Literature and Film
Prof. Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton;
Tu 3:30-6:00pm, Gibson Hall 142
An exploration of religious concepts, practices and issues as addressed in African literature and film. We will examine how various African authors and filmmakers weave aspects of Muslim, Christian and/or traditional religious cultures into the stories they tell. Course materials will be drawn from novels, memoirs, short stories, creation myths, poetry, feature-length movies, documentaries and short films. Fulfills: Humanities; Africa
4000 Level Research
All majors must take at least one course at the 4000-level that requires a 20-page research paper or its equivalent. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement cannot double count as Humanities, Race and Politics, or Social Science/History. For courses outside of AAS, kindly confirm with the instructor before/at the start of classes that the course meets the research requirements.
AAS 4501. Engaging Local Histories: River View Farm
Prof. Lisa Shutt.
Tu 2:00-6:00. New Cabell 068 (and off-grounds location at Ivy Creek Natural Area – we will arrange transportation)
This course aims to encourage students to situate and shed light on various aspects of Black history and culture in Albemarle County and the surrounding regions through the lens and example of River View Farm and those who created it, lived there, farmed there, and led local and regional communities in a number of ways. We will often hold class meetings on site at the farm (not far from grounds in Albemarle County) and engage various sources to become knowledgeable about Hugh Carr, whose earnings as the farm manager of the nearby Woodlands plantation enabled him to establish the farm with a 58-acre tract in the late 1860s. By examining the lives of Carr’s daughter, Mary Carr Greer, who was the first female principal of the Albemarle Training School and her husband, Conly Greer, Albemarle County’s first Black agricultural extension agent, we will follow students’ interests to examine topics ranging from the early post-emancipation lives of formerly enslaved men and women, the Black Extension Service and Land Grant University system, Black 4-H youth programs, women’s “Demonstration Clubs,” the history of African American education in the region between 1840 and the mid-20th century, Black agricultural history, local Albemarle County histories of the Civil Rights Movement, African American communities such as Hydraulic Mills and Union Ridge (and the flooding of Albemarle Black communities to build a reservoir), the impact of global forces on local experiences, African American foodways, the importance and format of kitchen gardens, museum studies, the history of historicizing River View Farm and other local sites related to Black history, and many more possible topics. Part of the work of this class involves actively working with the Ivy Creek Foundation to support their mission of providing education about local Black histories to the public. Students will produce a 20-page paper on their original research using archival materials (including a wealth of recorded interviews), material culture, and of the landscape/built environment. 4.0 credits
Fulfills: 4000-level research
AAS 4570.001 IIlegal & Second Slavery in Age of Revolutions
Instructor TBA
Mon Wed 3:30-4:45. New Cabell 209
ADD course desc.
AAS 4570.002 Black Reconstruction
Prof. Anna Duensing.
Tu 3:30-6:00pm New Cabell 064
This seminar offers an in-depth study of W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction. In addition to a close reading of major selections from the book, our work will focus on the national and international sociopolitical contexts in which Du Bois researched and wrote, the historiographical terrain he challenged and ultimately overturned through his analysis, and the long-term impact of Black Reconstruction within historical scholarship, political thought, radical activism, and U.S. political culture. We will read Du Bois in conversation with his major influences and interlocutors alongside scholars who built on his foundational insights, ideas that were revolutionary at the time but are far more commonplace today. This includes his challenge to dominant historiography and still-persistent myths about slavery and Reconstruction; his analysis of the lost opportunities of Reconstruction; his framing of entanglements of race and class oppression; the centrality of Black labor to the entire social and economic structure of the modern world; the inequalities and racial violence essential to the maintenance of capitalism; the role of whiteness in relation to U.S. citizenship; and the revolutionary possibilities of abolition democracy. Our other readings will include work from C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, Cedric Robinson, Amiri Baraka, Angela Davis, David Roediger, Robin Kelley, and Thulani Davis. Fulfills: 4000-level research
AMST 4559 Race, Criminality, and Abolition
Prof. Lisa Cacho;
Tu Th 11:00-12:15pm/ 2:00-3:15, Wilson Hall 214
ADD course desc. Fulfills: 4000
AMST 5559 Mapping Black Landscapes
Prof. Lisa Goff;
Tu 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell Hall 323
ADD course desc. Fulfills: 4000
ENGL 4500 Sally Hemings University
Prof. Lisa Woolfork;
Tu 5:30-8:00pm, John W. Warner Hall 110
This course is “Sally Hemings University.” Its objective is to prepare students to examine and reconfigure the status quo. This course seeks to help students appreciate the shift from euphemisms (“racially-charged” or “racially-tinged”) to vocabularies of consequence (“racist” or “white supremacist”), to foster a facility for talking capably and comfortably about “uncomfortable” topics such as systems of domination and their influence upon university and daily life. “Sally Hemings University” is a site where the adverse effects of overt and subtle forms of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of dominance are scrutinized. As a course, “Sally Hemings University” explores questions generated by re-framing “Mr. Jefferson’s University” (and universities generally) as a site that destabilizes the dominant narrative of the university as Jefferson’s primary property and by extension that of similarly entitled white men. Fulfills: 4000 with instructor permission
ENGL 4580.001 Critical Race Theory
Prof. Marlon Ross;
Th 5:00-7:30pm, New Cabell Hall 064
What does race mean in the late 20th and early 21st century? Given the various ways in which race as a biological “fact” has been discredited, why and how does race continue to have vital significance in politics, economics, education, culture, arts, mass media, and everyday social realities? How has the notion of race shaped, and been shaped by, changing relations to other experiences of identity stemming from sexuality, class, disability, multiculturalism, nationality, and globalism? This course surveys major trends in black literary and cultural theory from the 1960s to the present, focusing on a series of critical flashpoints that have occurred over the last several decades. These flashpoints include: 1) the crisis over black authenticity during the Black Power/ Black Arts movement; 2) the schisms related to womanism (or women of color feminism), focused on Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple and the Steven Spielberg film adaptation; 3) the debate over the social construction of race (poststructuralist theory); 4) the debate over queer racial identities, focused on two films, Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman and Barry Jenkins’ 2016 film Moonlight; 5) racial violence and the law, focused on the Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement; and 6) the aesthetic movement called Afrofuturism. Other reading will include a variety of theoretical essays and chapters drawn from different disciplines, including legal theory, film and media studies, sociology, history, political theory, and hip hop studies. While concentrating on theories of race deriving from African American studies, we’ll also touch on key texts from Native American, Asian-American, and Chicanx studies. The goal of the course is to give you a solid grounding in the vocabulary, key figures, concepts, debates, and discursive styles comprising the broad sweep of theoretical race studies from the late- twentieth century to the present, and to nurture your own theorizing about race and its deep cultural impact. Fulfills: 4000
ENGL 4580.002 Race in American Places
Prof. K. Ian Grandison;
Tu 5:00-7:30pm, Bryan Hall 323
This interdisciplinary seminar uses the method of Critical Landscape Analysis to explore how everyday places and spaces, “landscapes,” are involved in the negotiation of power in American society. Landscapes, as we engage the idea, may encompass seemingly private spaces (within the walls of a suburban bungalow or of a government subsidized apartment) to seemingly public spaces (the vest pocket park in lower Manhattan where the Occupy Movement was launched in September 2011; the Downtown Mall, with its many privately operated outdoor cafés, that occupy the path along which East Main Street once flowed freely in Charlottesville; or even the space of invisible AM and FM radio waves that the FCC supposedly regulates in the public’s interest). We launch our exploration by considering landscapes as arenas of the Culture Wars. With this context, we unearth ways in which places are planned, designed, constructed, and mythologized in the struggle to assert and enforce social (especially racial) distinctions, difference, and hierarchy. You will be moved to understand how publicly financed freeways were planned not only to facilitate some citizens’ modern progress, but also to block others from accessing rights, protections, and opportunities to which casually we believe all "Americans" are entitled. We study landscapes not only as represented in written and non-written forms, but also through direct sensory, emotional, and intellectual experience during two mandatory field trips to places in our region. In addition to informal group exercises and individual mid-term exam, critical field trip reflection paper, and final exam, you are required to complete in small groups a final research project on a topic you choose that relates to the seminar. Past topics have ranged from the racial politics of farmers’ markets in gentrifying inner cities to the gender--and the transgender exclusion—politics of universal standards for public restroom pictograms. Students showcase such results in an informal symposium that culminates the semester. Not only will you expand the complexity and scope of your critical thinking abilities, but also you will never again experience as ordinary the spaces and places you encounter from day to day. Fulfills: 4000
HIAF 4501 Seminar in African History: Photography and Freedom in Africa.
Prof. John Mason;
Mo 3:30-6:00pm, Clark Hall 101
The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. Seminar work results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies. Fulfills: 4000
HIUS 4501 Seminar in the United States History: Slavery and Founders
Prof. Christa Dierksheide;
Th 2:00-4:30pm, New Cabell Hall 038
The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. Seminar work results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies. Fulfills: 4000
MUSI 4090 Concepts of Performance in Africa
Prof. Michelle Kisliuk;
Th 3:30-5:00pm, Old Cabell Hall S008
ADD course desc. Fulfills: 4000; Africa
MUSI 4523 Issues in Ethnomusicology: Electronic Music in Africa
Prof. Noel Lobley;
Mo We 9:30-10:45am, Wilson Hall 142
An intensive experience with ethnomusicology and performance studies, this seminar explores musical ethnography (descriptive writing), experiential research, sociomusical processes, and other interdisciplinary approaches to musical performance. Addresses issues involving race, class, gender, and identity politics in light of particular topics and areas studies. Prerequisite: MUSI 3070 or instructor permission. Fulfills: 4000; Africa
Languages and Other Electives
SWAH 1020.001. Introductory Swahili II
Prof. Leonora Anyango.
Mon Wed Fri 10:00am - 10:50am; Online
This course is a continuation of SWAH 1010. The course is designed to advance your knowledge of Swahili from the SWAH 1010. It is expected that you will build your Swahili lexicon and Swahili grammar to enable you to adequately contribute to basic conversations with Swahili speakers. You will be able to talk more deeply about your work, studies, country and your preferences, needs, and interests following the correct grammar rules. You will learn how to handle basic social conversations at the market, in the hospital, and also talk about a variety of topics of common interest. You will also learn about more cultural aspects of everyday culture in East Africa from class and from engaging virtually the Swahili community in Charlottesville.
SWAH 1020.002 Introductory Swahili II
Prof. Anne Rotich; Section 002,
Mon Wed Fri 11:00-11:50, Brooks 103
This course is a continuation of SWAH 1010. The course is designed to advance your knowledge of Swahili from the SWAH 1010. It is expected that you will build your Swahili lexicon and Swahili grammar to enable you to adequately contribute to basic conversations with Swahili speakers. You will be able to talk more deeply about your work, studies, country and your preferences, needs, and interests following the correct grammar rules. You will learn how to handle basic social conversations at the market, in the hospital, and also talk about a variety of topics of common interest. You will also learn about more cultural aspects of everyday culture in East Africa from class and from engaging virtually the Swahili community in Charlottesville.
SWAH 2020 Intermediate Swahili II
Prof. Anne Rotich;
Mon Wed Fri 12:00-12:50am, Brooks 103
This is an intermediate Swahili course that is intended to equip you with more language skills in speaking, reading, writing, listening and cultures. It is an opportunity for you to enhance your language skills gained from SWAH 2010. At the end of this course you will have increased your Swahili vocabulary, speak Swahili with more ease and less errors, understand and interact with Swahili speakers. You will be able to write and analyze texts and essays in Swahili on different topics and appreciate more the cultures of the Swahili people. You will also be able to express yourself, your everyday activities, discuss politics or current events in Swahili. To achieve this we will utilize Swahili short story texts, multimedia resources, the internet, magazines, and news broadcast stations to enhance your learning.