SWAH 1010 Introductory Swahili I

Anne Rotich, MoWeFr 11:00AM - 11:50AM
Prerequisite: limited or no previous knowledge of Swahili.

SWAH 2010: Intermediate Swahili I:

Anne Rotich, MoWeFr 12:00PM - 12:50PM
Develops skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing, and awareness of the cultural diversity of the Swahili-speaking areas of East Africa. Readings drawn from a range of literary and journalistic materials. Prerequisite: SWAH 1020

AAS 1010 Introduction to African-American and African Studies I:

Nemata Blyden, TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM
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. (4 credits)

AAS 1559 Introductory Malagasy Language I

MoWe 3:05PM - 4:20PM

This introductory, first-semester course in Malagasy language will be taught remotely through the Consortium for Less Commonly Taught Languages (https://as.vanderbilt.edu/center-for- languages/language-partnership/) Malagasy is one of the two official languages of Madagascar.

AAS 2500 Shopping While Black

Micah Jones, Tu 2:00PM - 4:30PM

AAS 2500 Introduction to Afro-Latin America

Fatima Siwaju, TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM

This course surveys the cultural, intellectual and political trajectories of Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America.

AAS 2500 Black Genders

Alexandria Smith,TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM

In this class, we will develop a strong foundation for understanding Blackness as a set of gendered experiences and gender as a set of racialized experiences. In addition to experience, we will think about gender, sexuality, race, nationality, and class as shifting positions with different levels of access to power, and as ideas which are (re)produced and circulated throughout our cultures.

AAS 2500 Black Love: Media Representations vs Realities 

Ashleigh Wade, We 5:00PM - 7:30PM

How do media representations shape our perceptions and lived experiences of Black love? In this course we will examine media portrayals of Black love alongside theoretical readings about the historical, social, and cultural elements that impact the development of Black relationships. In addition to exploring examples of Black romantic relationships, we will also explore Black love in the context of family, friendships, and community.

AAS 2500 Black Bodies in Literature

Alexandria Smith, TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM

This class will explore the role of embodiment in writings by and about Black people across the African diaspora, with an emphasis on North American and Anglophone Caribbean writing. Reading a range of prose genres, we will think about the ways Blackness has been differently imagined to be "attached" to particular bodies, the ways Blackness has been described in literature, and the ways Black authors have narrated the experiences of living in Black bodies.

AAS 2500 Environmental Justice in the Mid-Atlantic

Kimberly Fields, Th 3:30PM - 6:00PM

This course is dedicated to examining government responses to environmental injustice. Our readings and discussions will use an interdisciplinary social-science perspective to track the trajectory of environmental justice activism and official responses to it in the five states (DE, MD, PA, VA, WVA) the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has designated as comprising the important but understudied mid-Atlantic region. We will analyze these states’ EJ efforts in relation to each other and compare them to the EJ efforts of other states in different regions. We will consider cases that exemplify common forms of environmental inequality. We will see how differences in state capacity, resources, procedures, activism, demographics, economies and power distributions shape and influence states’ official EJ efforts.

AAS 2500 Introduction to Race, Class, Politics & the Environment

Kimberly Fields, Th 6:00PM - 8:30PM

This course explores the relationships between 'race', socio- economic status, interest group politics and environmental policy. We will address and contend with debates surrounding the claims that racialized, marginalized and poor communities disproportionately shoulder society's negative environmental burdens. Some key topics to be considered include: theories of racism and justice, the conceptual history and definitions of environmental racism, the historical development and goals of the environmental justice movement, the social, political, economic and environmental advantages and drawbacks of current systems of production and consumption, stakeholder responses to environmental inequities, the impact of environmental justice policies on environmental inequities as well as their impact on subsequent political behavior, pollution in developing nations and, indigenous peoples.

AAS 2500 Introduction to African Languages and Literatures

Anne Rotich, MoWeFr 1:00PM - 1:50PM

What is Africa? What is the African imagination How can we imagine Africa and write a narrative that fairly describes the African continent? This course will survey literary texts in English by contemporary African writers to see how they imagined Africa and issues that preoccupied the writers. Students will read a variety of literary texts including novels, short stories, poetry, film and songs and critically analyze the cultural and aesthetics of the literary landscape and then express their learning through class discussions, reflections, group presentations and the writing of an analytical digital stories.

AAS 2500 Race, Class & Gender

Liana Richardson, We 6:00PM - 8:30PM

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, gender, and other axes of difference 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, education, health care, and criminal justice systems. Finally, we will consider potential strategies for disrupting these linkages, and the social justice politics associated with them.

AAS 2657 Routes, Writing, Reggae

Njelle Hamilton, TuTh 2:00PM - 3:15PM
In this course, we will trace the history of reggae music and explore its influence on the development of Jamaican literature. With readings on Jamaican history, we will consider why so many reggae songs speak about Jah and quote from the Bible. Then, we will explore how Marcus Garvey's teachings led to the rise of Rastafarianism, which in turn seeded ideas of black pride and black humanity into what would become reggae music.

AAS 3500 Education and Conflict

Naseemah Mohamed, TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM

This course explores the complex historical, ideological, and political relationships between education and conflict in various African contexts. Beginning with indigenous conceptions of knowledge and education, it traces the impact of colonialism, independence movements, and contemporary challenges such as structural adjustment programs and generative AI on African education systems. Through case studies from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal/Mali, Kenya, and South Africa, students will learn to critically interrogate the evolving role of education (including their own) in different forms of conflict across the continent and around the world.

AAS 3500 Gender Wars: US Empire in the Caribbean

Mo 4:00PM - 6:30PM, Shelby Sinclair

How did ideas about race and gender inform the culture of US empire in the Caribbean? This course exposes students to the history of U.S. capitalist expansion and imperial domination in the Caribbean archipelago and continental rimland territories after 1898. Using music, literature, film, newspapers, poetry, visual art, and more, we investigate a series of “gender wars” to uncover how the Caribbean became a laboratory for U.S. imperial strategy. Furthermore, we examine how people of African descent undermined the United States’ protracted attempts to shape the world for its interests.

AAS 3500 Islam and the Black Experience

Fatima Siwaju, Th 2:00PM - 4:30PM

This course focuses on the histories, religious trajectories, political pursuits, and cultural practices of Afro-American Muslim communities in the Americas.

AAS 3500 Race, Ethnicity, and Health in the US

Liana Richardson, We 2:00PM - 4:30PM

In this course, we will examine the relationships between “race”/ethnicity and health inequities. Drawing from research in a variety of disciplines, including epidemiology, demography, and sociology, we will examine how health is distributed by “race”/ethnicity, as well as the social, economic, and political factors that give rise to the differential distribution of health between and within racial/ethnic groups. We also will discuss whether contemporary health promotion and disease prevention policies are sufficient to address racial/ethnic inequities in health. Finally, we will consider the kinds of policies that could have a bigger impact, and the potential explanations for why they have not been pursued.

AAS 3500 Horror Noire: History of Black Americans in Horror 

Robin Means Coleman, Mo 4:00PM - 6:30PM
Black horror is a primer on the quest for social justice. What can such a boundary- pushing genre teach us about paths to solidarity and democracy? What can we learn about disrupting racism, misogyny, and anti-Blackness? If horror is radical transgression, then we have much to learn from movies such as Candyman, The First Purge, Get Out, Eve’s Bayou, Blacula, Attack the Block, Demon Knight, Tales from the Hood, Sugar Hill, and Ganja & Hess.

AAS 3500 Black Womanhood & The Meaning of Freedom

Tu 6:00PM - 8:30PM

This course uses gender to understand the social traditions and political strategies that defined Black women’s lives in the West from the 17th to 19th centuries. By examining the conditions of Black women’s unfreedom, we discover how these women theorized, pursued, and experienced liberation. We also investigate women’s life-sustaining community formations and defense against state-sanctioned domination, including their construction of rival geographies, their use of eroticism, and their exercise of discursive resistance. Harnessing critical feminist scholarship across disciplines, this course offers a broad perspective on Black women’s subjectivity, theories of freedom, and their importance to modern world history.

AAS 3853 From Redlined to Subprime: Race and Real Estate in the US

Andrew Kahrl, MoWe 12:00PM - 12:50PM
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.

AAS 4070 Distinguished Majors Thesis

Students in the Distinguished Majors Program should enroll in this course for their first semester of thesis research.

AAS 4501 Race, Power, & Political Economy

Andrew Kahrl, We 2:00PM - 4:30PM

This advanced research seminar will examine the history and historiography of race and power (with an emphasis on the US context) through the lens of political economy, and introduce students to research sources and methods pertinent to this area of study. Each student will complete a 20-page research paper on a topic of their choosing related to the course's theme.

AAS 4570 Intro- African & African Diasporic Critical Theory

Nasrin Olla, TuTh 5:00PM - 6:15PM

This course will introduce students the major themes and questions in African & African Diasporic critical theory. We will study texts from deconstruction, feminism, psychoanalysis and black studies. Authors will include: Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, Achille Mbembe and others. This course will be of interest to students invested in thinking about the relation between anti-racist critique, literature, art, and philosophy.

AAS 4570 Caribbean Sci-Fi

Njelle Hamilton, TuTh 3:30PM - 4:45PM

Superheroes, space operas, time travel, futuristic tech — the stuff of dreams and the subject of countless popular literary and cultural works over the past century. Far too long featuring mainly white male heroes and US or European settings, sci-fi and fantasy (SF/F) have become increasingly diverse in recent years, even as reframed definitions open up archives of previously overlooked black and brown genre writing from across the globe. Still the Caribbean is often ignored, imagined either as a rustic beach or a technological backwater. In this undergraduate seminar, however, you will encounter authors and auteurs from the English-, Spanish- and French-speaking Caribbean working at the cutting edge of SF/F, and discover novels, stories, artwork and film that center Caribbean settings, peoples, and culture, even as they expand the definition of genre. We will also discuss supporting turns by Caribbean actors in mainstream works such as Star Trek and Black Panther. Assignments will include short critical essays and a long research paper where you think through how Caribbean texts redefine, expand, or critique mainstream SF/F.