AAS Spring 2023 courses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prof. Christina Proenza-Coles; 

Tu Th 2:00-3:15pm, Brice Hall 235

ADD course desc. Fulfills: SSH

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

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

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

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

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: 

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prof. Lisa Goff; 

Tu 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell Hall 323

Course description pending: Fufills

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

Prof. Theresa Davis; 

TBA, TBA Hall TBA

A directed project-based study offered to upper-level students. Fulfills: Humanities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prof. Kai Parker; 

Tu Th 3:30-4:45pm, Nau Hall 141

ADD course desc. Fulfills: Humanities

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

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.

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. 

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.. 

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.  

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. 

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. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instructor TBA

Mon Wed 3:30-4:45. New Cabell 209

ADD course desc. 

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

Prof. Lisa Cacho; 

Tu Th 11:00-12:15pm/ 2:00-3:15, Wilson Hall 214

ADD course desc. Fulfills: 4000

Prof. Lisa Goff; 

Tu 3:30-6:00pm, New Cabell Hall 323

ADD course desc. Fulfills: 4000

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

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

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

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

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

Prof. Michelle Kisliuk; 

Th 3:30-5:00pm, Old Cabell Hall S008

ADD course desc. Fulfills: 4000; 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

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.

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.

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.