Fall 2023

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.  

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)

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.

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.

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.

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)

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)

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)

Instructor: Amir Syed; Tu Th 11:00-12:15pm, New Cabell 232

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.

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.

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)

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.

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)

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.

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)

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. 

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)

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. 

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

Instructor: Amir Syed; Tu Th 11-12:50pm, New Cabell 232

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Instructor: Andrew Kahrl; Mon 2:00-4:30pm, Gibson 241

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.

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. 

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.