Catalog Course Descriptions

Introduces global dance form through presentation of fundamental techniques, music and culture. Area of concentration may vary to include an array of global perspectives. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.

Fundamentals of Blues, Rock, and Jazz is designed for students without formal training in music theory. The course focuses on Afro-centric concepts in twentieth-century American musical culture including improvisation, emphasis on rhythm and groove, and use of multiple and integrated tonalities, such as major and minor in the blues. Limited to three attempts.

Historical, analytical, and aural survey of jazz from inception to present day. Looks at trends resulting from synthesis of jazz with other musical idioms. Notes: Music majors may take as free elective or part of jazz studies concentration. Limited to three attempts.

Interdisciplinary introduction to the field of African American studies. Includes comparative analysis of approaches, methodologies, and key concepts related to the study of people of African descent in the United States, continental Africa, and throughout the African diaspora. Lectures and discussion integrate attention to such issues as diversity and multiculturalism from national and global perspectives. Limited to three attempts.

Focuses on the sub-Saharan region and examines evolving systems of kinship power, spirituality, and slavery. Explores the interactions between Africans and global influences from the religions of the book and colonialism to the politics of development and continuities and changes in production. HIST 261 surveys African history from the earliest times to 1800. HIST 262 surveys African history from 1800 to the present. Limited to three attempts.

Focuses on the sub-Saharan region and examines evolving systems of kinship power, spirituality, and slavery. Explores the interactions between Africans and global influences from the religions of the book and colonialism to the politics of development and continuities and changes in production. HIST 261 surveys African history from the earliest times to 1800. HIST 262 surveys African history from 1800 to the present. Limited to three attempts.

Introduces students to individuals and ideas which have shaped and influenced racial and ethnic interactions and relations in the past and present. Attention will focus on historical meanings and sentiments attached to race and ethnicity as concepts, ideas, and images, and the ways these concepts and images have co-joined to allocate differential social, political, economic, and educational rewards to individuals and groups designated as racial groups, ethnic groups, or both. Limited to three attempts.

Study of selected topics related to the study of people of African descent in Africa, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin Americas and throughout the African Diaspora. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.

Explores the complex and distance-defying connections shaping Africa and being shaped by Africans on the continent. Emphasizes the diversity and change characterizing peoples who are at the center of world processes. Topics include popular representations of Africa and Africans, colonial and postcolonial histories, gender, money, family, religion, environment, and health. Limited to three attempts.

Social and political forces of contemporary era from communication perspective, emphasizing political leadership, pressures for social and political change, and transformations in communicative environment. Limited to three attempts.

Introduces concepts of power, influence of mass media. Allows students to see themselves as products, producers of media influence, and gives sense of the roles in the media or lack thereof, of groups based on their gender, race and/or class. Limited to three attempts.

Covers deeply rooted, intractable, or protracted social conflicts around core issues of identity, including race, ethnicity, religion, and nationalism. Explores cultural, symbolic, and discursive approaches to identity conflict. Limited to three attempts.

Explores justice and reconciliation from a conflict perspective. Drawing on approaches in the interdisciplinary fields of sociolegal studies and conflict analysis and resolution, the course considers these and other questions: How does injustice fuel conflict? What role should justice play in guiding conflict prevention and addressing the aftermath of violence? What is reconciliation and how do we know when it has been achieved? Are justice and reconciliation mutually reinforcing processes or does one stand in the way of the other? The first part of the course focuses on foundational concepts and questions understood through domestic US examples, examining topics such as: gender equality and gender violence, migration and integration, discrimination, identity politics, healing communities, and environmental justice. We then broaden our perspective geographically, as we examine justice and reconciliation as responses to mass atrocity. Limited to three attempts.

Examines inequality, social justice, and human rights in an age of globalization. Topics may include international law and order, welfare-and social policy, regionalism and multilateralism, environmental protection, gender equality, terrorist and transnational criminal networks, human trafficking, modern slavery, world poverty, corporate military firms, governance of global financial institutions, security, and transnational social movements. Limited to three attempts.

Concentrating on such poets as Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Lucy Terry, and George Moses Horton, examines significant African American literary, social, and political texts produced through 1865. Special attention to narrative accounts of enslavement and freedom by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Olaudah Equiano; political writings and orations of David Walker and Sojourner Truth; fiction of Harriet Wilson and William Wells Brown; and nonwritten cultural artifacts such as slave songs and spirituals. Limited to three attempts.

Emphasizes several major writers from Reconstruction to beginning of 20th century, concluding with W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk . Concentrating on evolution of African American fiction and poetry as well as political and social discourses on "race," explores how authors such as Frances E.W. Harper, Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Booker T. Washington, and DuBois shaped the foundation for 20th-century African American literary art and aesthetics. Limited to three attempts.

Focusing on fiction, poetry, drama, and autobiography, explores evolution of African American literature and aesthetics and major social, cultural, and historical movements such as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and emergence of black naturalism, realism, and modernism in the 1930s-40s. Major authors include Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Margaret Walker, Chester Himes, Richard Wright, and Ann Petry. Limited to three attempts.

Encompassing array of genres and forms, examines black writing from mid-20th century to present. Engages textual, critical, political, and theoretical issues related to cardinal literary movements, such as Black Arts Movement of 1960s and Third Renaissance of 1980s-90s. Examines how musical forms such as blues, jazz, and rap shaped literary production. Major authors include Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Alice Walker, Ernest Gaines, Gloria Naylor, August Wilson, and Toni Morrison. Limited to three attempts.

Environmental, economic, and social factors of differentiation of regional structure and distribution of resources in North African and Middle Eastern countries. Limited to three attempts.

Societies of Middle East and North Africa and their response to impact of internal sociocultural-political determinants and external forces. Focuses on contemporary politics, ideologies, popular manifestations, institutions, and operations.Limited to three attempts.

History of African American experience in United States including African origins; trans-Atlantic slave trade; development of slavery in colonial, revolutionary, and antebellum periods; abolitionist movements; and African American participation in Civil War and during Reconstruction. Limited to three attempts.

History of African American life in post-slavery America, and rise and consequences of racial segregation in 19th and 20th centuries. Examines African American response to continued racial inequality and repression. Covers great migration, urbanization, black nationalism, and civil rights era, as well as contemporary debates about race. Limited to three attempts.

This course examines the history of African American women in antebellum America, both the general experiences of enslaved and nominally free women, and the lives of noted women who were involved in the public arena as orators, writers, preachers, abolitionists and women's rights activists. Within the context of the national political debates and compromises that took place on the issue of slavery and the status of free blacks, the course uses an intersectional analysis in examining the effect of gender, class and race on the development of ideologies concerning abolition, colonization, women’s rights and enslavement. Limited to three attempts.

The course examines the underlying causes of the increased violence and oppression African Americans faced post-Reconstruction and the organizational responses of blacks to the drastic curtailment of their basic rights. During this period of Jim Crow ascendancy, African American life was circumscribed by race riots and lynching, police brutality, segregation, job exclusion, housing discrimination, unequal educational opportunities and disfranchisement. Race and gender ideology figured prominently in white justification for violence and the restrictions meted out against blacks. In addition to examining the changing political and economic conditions that gave rise to various protest and civil rights organizations and movements, the course analyzes the different personalities and ideologies of leaders in these organizations, explores the divisions that sometimes impeded a movement’s effectiveness, and investigates the gendered meanings of what it meant to be black and white in America. Limited to three attempts.

At the turn of the 20th century popular culture categorized African American women as desexualized Mammies or immoral Jezebels. These devastating depictions were also linked to the myth of black men as hypersexual rapists of white women whose image was infused with a heightened purity. This course examines the simultaneous struggles of black women to defend their name and fight all forms of race and sex proscriptions from the turn of the century period of Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement through the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s. This course establishes that the activism of women was central to struggles to overturn segregation, end lynching, and secure political and civil rights. The course explores the effects of sexist and racist ideologies on their lives and activism, the changes in their economic and political status, the legal and social barriers they faced, and the ways in which they were defined within families and within popular culture. Limited to three attempts.

Explores the historical processes that led to the rise of African kingdoms, colonialism, industrialization, resistance movements, and legalized segregation. Limited to three attempts.

Examines how concepts of gender, sexual difference, and race structure key philosophical ideas and put such ideas into question. Analyzes the ways in which patriarchal, colonial and racialized structures intersect to produce concepts of the human, the subject, and the ‘Other’. Explores alternative approaches to subjectivity, sexuality, the body, and knowledge drawn from feminist philosophy, queer theory, and philosophies of race and decoloniality. Limited to three attempts.

Explores processes for organizing resistance to current social and power arrangements, from terrorism to nonviolent civil resistance to create alternative institutions, policies, or leadership that promote human rights and social justice. Uses historical and contemporary case studies of local and global change to explore, how, why, and to what effect individuals have organized to protest the status quo and create social change. Limited to three attempts.

Explores how race and ethnicity have been shaped by policies and practices in Western and non-Western societies. Explores the evolution of racial and ethnic attitudes from a global and historical perspective. Examines how changing demographic racial patterns may affect definitions of race and ethnicity and the ways in which people individually and collectively act to create new futures. Limited to three attempts.

Examines cities and the people who live in them in the United States and around the world. Includes topics such as: social and economic development, inequality, political protests, urban democracy, and the environment. Limited to three attempts.

Focuses on sport participant and employee diversity and inclusive practices; and how differences based on religion disability, socioeconomic class, sex, gender, sexual orientation and racial hierarchies impacts historical and current sport experiences and outcomes. Limited to three attempts.

Historical and contemporary accounts of women's participation in paid and unpaid labor. Analyzes the nature of women's work through the divisions in the labor market due to gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, and class. Provides a detailed look at occupational sex segregation, sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, and the role of religion, culture, and education in determining women's opportunities and their value as workers and as family providers. Limited to three attempts.

Examines racialized gendered conceptions of popular culture, violence, and the legal system and their role in structuring systems of segregation, discrimination and exclusion. Looks at the gendered strategies and conflicts of organizations that arose to combat racial violence and overturn legal and social barriers to equal opportunity and citizenship rights. Limited to three attempts.

Examines the general experiences of enslaved women and nominally free women. Includes the lives of female reformers involved in the public arena as orators, writers, preachers, abolitionists and women's rights activists. Explores the effect of gender, class, and race on the development of ideologies concerning abolition, colonization, women's rights, and enslavement. Limited to three attempts.

Provides an intersectional study of women's historical struggles to fight race, gender and class oppression. Demonstrates legal influence on reproduction of race and gender inequalities. Documents the major movements of the period from Jim Crow segregation to Black Power. Limited to three attempts.

Focuses on constructions of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary and classic television . Examines television through genres, consumption, and social justice issues. Equivalent to INTS 374.

Approved work-study program in cooperation with specific organizations including area museums; NGOs; and local, state, and federal agencies. Students should arrange for an internship in the semester before they wish to enroll. Permission required from program director. Limited to three attempts.

Investigation of an area related to African American studies according to individual interest, with emphasis on research. Permission required from program director. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.

Analyzes a selection of literary texts (novel, short story, poetry, and/or theater) and authors in their historical and cultural contexts: Negritude, (post)colonialism, new African voices within and beyond the continent. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.

Analyzes a selection of important literary texts (novel, short story, poetry, and/or theater) and authors in their historical and cultural contexts: the construction of identity through and beyond Negritude, Antillanit�Creolite, and migration. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.

Examines how the cultural values and mores regarding sexuality shape HIV/AIDS social policy and how these values and mores facilitate and hinder prevention and care efforts. Also examines several sexuality-related topics that interface with culture (e.g., gender, the sex industry, homosexuality) and the effectiveness of prevention and care initiatives around such issues as condom use, blood donation restrictions, immigration laws, sex education, and HIV testing. Limited to three attempts.

Examines political, economic, and social impact of public policies and implications for race, gender, and age.May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.

Analyzes selected policy issues in administering public policies. Topics announced in advance. Examples include environmental policy, government regulation, federal mandates, state policy, and regional policy. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department.May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.

Engages students in an examination of the forms and impacts of racism, as well as movements for racial justice, in the United States. Draws on theoretical frameworks including critical race theory and intersectionality theory in order to examine the structural roots of racism and the implicit and explicit ways in which racism manifests today. Limited to three attempts.

Investigates the social and cultural construction of racial categories that have led to inaccurate and stereotypical representations that persist and cause harm today. Limited to three attempts.

Explores the other systemic oppressions that exist within the LGBTQ community such as racism, classism, and others through historical and contemporary debates and texts. Limited to three attempts.

Interrogates the myriad ways in which Black Bodies are formally and informally policed. Special focus is given to the ways in which Black women’s bodies are policed not only by the criminal justice system, but also informally through sexual and intimate partner violence, forced sterilization and contraception. Course utilizes the theoretical lenses of intersectionality and of color blind racism. Equivalent to INTS 441.

Analyzes a selection of literary texts (novel, short story, poetry, and/or theater) and authors in their historical and cultural contexts: Negritude, (post)colonialism, new African voices within and beyond the continent. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.

Analyzes a selection of important literary texts (novel, short story, poetry, and/or theater) and authors in their historical and cultural contexts: the construction of identity through and beyond Negritude, Antillanit�Creolite, and migration. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.

Analyzes selected policy issues in administering public policies. Topics announced in advance. Examples include environmental policy, government regulation, federal mandates, state policy, and regional policy. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different with permission of department.May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.