African-American Studies Course Descriptions

AAS 201: African and Diaspora Religious Traditions
Instructor: Dr. Gloria Dickinson
This course chronicles the artistic expressions of African, Caribbean, Latin American, and African-American people by exploring the links among indigenous African religious values, rituals and worldview, and the visual arts, musical, literary, and dramatic practices created throughout the African Diaspora. The ways in which African religions have informed global artistic preservations of an African worldview and the worldview’s fusion with European and American cultures will be emphasized.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity and Gender
World Views and Ways of Knowing: Race/Ethnicity.

AAS 205: African-American History to 1865
Cross-list: HIS379
Instructor: Dr. Christopher Fisher
An examination of the history of African Americans from their ancestral home in Africa to the end of the United States Civil War. The course encompasses introducing the cultures and civilizations of the African people prior to the opening up of the New World and exploring Black contributions to America up to 1865.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Race/Ethnicity.

AAS 206: African-American History Since 1865
Cross-list: HIS 380
Instructor: Dr. Christopher Fisher
An examination of the history of African Americans from the end of legal slavery in the United States to the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. The course is designed to explore the history of African Americans since the Reconstruction and their contributions to the civil rights revolution of the present era.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Race/Ethnicity.

AAS221: Early African-American Literature
Cross-list: LIT281
Instructor: Dr. Piper Kendrix-Williams
A study of selected African American Literature from the colonial period to the Harlem Renaissance, this course will build your knowledge and confidence as readers and critics of African American culture and society in the US. We will focus on the oral folk productions of the colonial period, slave narratives, poetry, speeches, autobiography, essays of the 19th century and the poetry and prose of the Harlem Rennaissance.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts: Race/Ethnicity.

AAS240: History of Jazz
Cross-list: MUS245
Instructor(s): Dr. Gary Fienberg and Dr. Ralph Russell
AAS240/MUS245 is a survey of jazz and American culture from its beginnings in the late 1800's to the early 1950's. It requires shared and independent listening and requires the student to develop critical skills. Students completing the course will have had an opportuiny to practice and enhance his/her ability to shape abstract ideas into concrete concepts.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts: Race/Ethnicity.

AAS280: Africana Women in Historical Perspective
Cross-list: WGS260
Instructor: Dr. Gloria Dickinson, Dr. Winnifred Brown-Glaude, and Professor Meridith Davis
"Africana Women in Historical Perspective" is a global, cross-cultural survey of the lives and contributions of women of African ancestry. Emphasis will be placed upon shared elements of African culture that, when impacted by colonialism and/or the Atlantic slave trade, resulted in similar types of resistance to oppression, and analogues cultural expression among the women of four locales: Africa, South America and the Caribbean, North America and Europe. Theoretical methodologies, historical narrative, literature, demographic data, material culture, representations of self, and representations by others will be explored to illuminate/explain the: History, Cultural artifacts, Cultural retentions and Self-concept.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Gender and Global.

AAS282: History of Race Relations in the U.S.
Cross-list: HIS 390
Instructor(s): Dr. Christopher Fisher and Dr. David McAllister
A socio-historical examination of race as a category in the United States. The course approaches the United States as a multiracial society and discusses how the various racial groups negotiate their differences politically, economically, intellectually, socially, and culturally.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Race/Ethnicity.

AAS321: Topics: Race, Gender, and the News
Cross-list: JPW321
Instructor: Professor Kim Pearson
Through interactive discussion, case study analysis, ongoing research, and old-fashioned reporting, this class explores the role and influence of the news media as it covers stories related to race, gender and religion.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity.

AAS 335: Caribbean Women Writers
Cross-list: LIT 335
Instructor: Dr. Piper Kendrix Williams
Anglophone and English translations of Hispanophone and Lusophone writings by Caribbean women writers of African descent will be examined. Post Colonial and Africana feminist literary criticism will be used to explore the intersectionalities of race, gender, class, and sexuality on this literature as well as its connection to the writings African and other Diaspora women.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity and Gender
Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts: Race/Ethnicity and Gender.

AAS 344: Workshop in African-American Theater
Instructor: Staff
In the African American Theater Workshop we will examine plays written by African-American playwrights as well as plays, which relate to the African-American experience.  This class will take an interdisciplinary approach to learning about African American Theater.  The final project for the semester will include participation in a student scene night.

AAS 348: African-American Music
Instructor: Dr. Ralph Russell
A survey of African-American music as a social document. The types of music discussed in the course include Negro spirituals, the work song, blues and jazz, various forms of religious music, and popular music. Field trips may be required at student expense.

AAS 351: Ancient and Medieval Africa
Cross-List: HIS 351
Instructor: Dr. Matthew Bender
This introductory course surveys ancient and medieval African history through the eyes of male and female royalty, archaeologists, peasants, religious leaders and storytellers. While the course reconstructs the great civilizations of ancient Africa including Egypt, Zimbabwe, Mali, and others, it is not primarily focused on kings and leaders. Rather, the course explores how ordinary Africans ate, relaxed, worshiped, and organized their personal and political lives.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Global.

AAS 352: Colonial and Modern Africa
Cross-list: HIS 352
Instructor: Dr. Matthew Bender
This course explores African history from 1800 up to the present. Using case studies, it will examine how wide-ranging social, political, and economic processes, the slave trade, colonial rule, African nationalism, independence, and new understandings of women’s rights changed local people’s lives.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Global.

AAS 365: African Cinema: Francophone African Experience
Through Film
Cross-list: INT 365
Instructor: Dr. Moussa Sow
An in-depth exploration of Francophone African cinema by Africans in front of and behind the camera. Cinema, as an ideological tool, has played a major role in Africa during colonial times and after the independence of African nations. It extends the spectrum of choices for students as well as laying the foundations of African history and culture from a filmic perspective. Does not count toward a French minor, but can be taken for LAC.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity and Global
Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts: Race/Ethnicity and Global.

AAS 375: Womanist Thought
Cross-list: WGS 365
Prerequisites: AAS 280, WGS 280/Africana Women in Historical Perspective, or WGS 375/Global Feminisms, or by permission of the instructor
Instructor: Dr. Gloria Dickinson
This course traces the evolution of feminist consciousness among Africana women. Students will trace the thoughts, social and political activism and ideologies generate by women of African ancestry from the early 19th century free black “feminist abolitionists” to contemporary times. “Womanist,” “Feminist,” “Critical Race Feminist,” and “Black Feminist” ideologies will be emphasized through course readings and assignments that explore the emergence and perpetuation of an Africana women’s feminist consciousness.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity and Gender
World Views and Ways of Knowing: Race/Ethnicity and Gender.

AAS376: Topics African-American Women's History
Cross-list: HIS365 and WGS 361
Instructor: Dr. Ann Marie Nicolosi
This course is a study of the experience of African-American women in the US, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Through a survey of critical time periods, key social institutions, and crystallizing experiences the course will explicate the role of African-American women in shaping present American society.
Readings, lectures, discussions, recordings and movies will be used to present a comprehensive and cohesive understanding of African-American women.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity and Gender
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Race/Ethnicity and Gender.

 

First-Year Seminar classes:

FSP102: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance: "When the Negro Was in Vogue"
Instructor: Dr. Piper Kendrix-Williams
A study of literature in the African American tradition during the Harlem Renaissance 1919-1940, focusing on the prose, poetry, and essays of the period. We explore relationships between literature and social politics, community and representation. We also follow a number of debates, including those about issues of identity (being American; being Negro; being Black; racial and social passing); claims to culture through literature; social change through literature; gender roles in literature and social contexts. This seminar helps you see the depth and breadth of these debates as well as to illuminate your own understanding of ways race operates in your life.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts: Race/Ethnicity.

FSP132: Brown v. Board of Education
Instructor: Dr. Christopher T. Fisher
This seminar views Brown v. Board of Education as a pivotal event that unmade and reshaped American society. Students explore how the court case helped define new relationships in the domestic social order, the terms of America's foreign relations, a shift in party politics, and a transformation in the way Americans viewed themselves. The seminar takes a thematic approach that situates the social, political, and cultural antecedents of the 1954 decision in a historical context reaching back to the nineteenth century. While we utilize film, literature, legal documents, sociological studies, and historical circumstance to explain the origins and consequences of the Brown decision, the foundational elements of the seminar rely on historical scholoraship and research. Taking a broad approach incorporating interdisciplinary texts fosters an exciting and comprehensive study of the vent.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Race/Ethnicity.

FSP122 Brown v. Board of Education: From Brown to Black Feminism
Instructor: Dr. Gloria Dickinson
This seminar undertakes an in-depth study of the tenets of Black Feminism while focusing on the women whose advocasy before, during and after the 1954 Supreme Court decision is central to a more complete understanding of the history of American and African-American education and the civil rights and women's rights movements in the USA.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity.

FSP102: Harlem Renaissance: Black Paris
Instructor: Dr. Moussa Sow
This seminar explores intersections between the 1920's era English-Speaking Black consciousness/arts/intellectual movement in France. The relationship of both movements to one another, and to subsequent civil rights, human rights, and independence movements are studied in depth.
Meets Liberal Learning Categories:
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts: Race/Ethnicity.

FSP122: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Anglophone Caribbean
Instructor: Dr. Winnifred Brown-Glaude
This course examines race, ethnicity, class and gender as significant variables affecting people’s lives in the Anglophone Caribbean. In this course, we seek to understand social inequalities in the Anglophone Caribbean and the consequences of those inequities on human experiences.
Civic Responsibility: Race/Ethnicity
Social Change in Historical Perspective: Race/Ethnicity.