Information For:

Courses for Spring 2021

  • Independent Reading and Research

    Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    AFRI 1970 S03
    Primary Instructor
    Bogues
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Braun
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S05
    Primary Instructor
    Perry
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S06
    Primary Instructor
    Meeks
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S07
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S08
    Primary Instructor
    George
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S09
    Primary Instructor
    Henry
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S10
    Primary Instructor
    Guterl
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S11
    Primary Instructor
    Hamlin
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S12
    Primary Instructor
    Biggs
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S13
    Primary Instructor
    Terry-Morgan
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S15
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 1970 S16
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research

  • Graduate Level Independent Reading and Research

    A program of intensive reading and research. Section numbers may vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    AFRI 2980 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Bogues
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Braun
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S03
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Guterl
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S05
    Primary Instructor
    Hamlin
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S06
    Primary Instructor
    Henry
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S07
    Primary Instructor
    Perry
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S08
    Primary Instructor
    Terry-Morgan
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S09
    Primary Instructor
    Rose
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    AFRI 2980 S10
    Primary Instructor
    Meeks
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research

  • Preliminary Examination Preparation

    For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment while preparing for a preliminary examination.
    AFRI 2970 S01
    Schedule Code
    E: Graduate Thesis Prep

  • Thesis Preparation

    For graduate students who have met the residency requirement and are continuing research on a full time basis.
    AFRI 2990 S01
    Schedule Code
    E: Graduate Thesis Prep

  • Black Lavender: Black Gay/Lesbian Plays/Dramatic Constructions in the American Theatre

    Study of plays with African-American LGBTQ+ content, primarily manuscripts, with a focus on thesis paper development. Creative writing option. Participation in the Black Lavender Experience required. Cross-listed with TAPS. Gender and Sexuality.
    AFRI 0990 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Terry-Morgan

  • Black Freedom Struggle Since 1945

    Lecture course that examines the extended history of the mass civil rights movement in the U.S. Starting at World War II, we consider the roles of the courts, the federal and state governments, organizations, local communities, individuals and various activist strategies in the ongoing struggle for African American equality, focusing on African American agency, particularly in the South, but also in Boston, Mass. Sources include photographs, documentaries, movies, letters, speeches, autobiographies, and secondary readings. Requirements: Weekly readings, documentary viewings, 4 short papers, 2 exams.
    AFRI 1090 S01
    As of now, this class will hold Tuesdays as a lecture day and Thursday as a discussion day. On discussion days depending on the number of on campus students we will meet in person and in zoom simultaneously. In addition to a live lecture there will be an additional taped lecture to view before the discussion and all readings will be due by discussion day.
    Primary Instructor
    Hamlin

  • Afro-Caribbean Philosophy

    An introduction to the field of Afro-Caribbean philosophy. The first half focuses on the history of the field, identifying its African background and surveying some of its major schools, such as the Afro-Christians, the poeticists, the historicists, and existentialists. The second half consists of a more intensive comparative focus on the ontologies and epistemologies of two of these schools.
    AFRI 1150 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Henry

  • Africana Studies: Knowledge, Texts and Methodology

    This course will explore the issues of Africana Studies as a discipline by engaging in a series of critical readings of the central texts, which laid the protocols of the discipline. The course will also raise issues of knowledge production and methodologies. This course is a senior capstone seminar. Open to all senior Africana Studies concentrators; others by instructor permission only. Enrollment limited to 25.
    AFRI 1360 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Meeks

  • Contesting the Carceral State

    This course introduces students to the study of crime and justice through Black, feminist, queer and prison abolitionist frameworks, with a particular focus on narratives by people of African descent in the U.S. since 1965.
    AFRI 1030 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Biggs

  • Afro-pessimism and Its Kin

    As an intellectual project, Afro-pessimism has developed an interpretation of the unique position of black people within a world they say the transatlantic slave trade and anti-black racial solidarity has made. Through close reading, this seminar will begin by critically engaging the core texts of Afro-pessimism, move on to contextualize its central claims about black ontology, social death, civil society, and the world within its canon (e.g. Saidiya Hartman, Orlando Patterson, Hortense Spillers and so on) and critically engage an ever-expanding scholarship that takes up, expands, and contests the Afro-pessimist project (e.g. Fred Moten, Christina Sharpe and so on).
    AFRI 2020 S01
    All students interested in registering for the course should attend the first day of class and override codes to register for the class will be given once the class roster is finalized.
    Primary Instructor
    LeSure

  • Theorizing Racism

    Since the eruption of Black Lives Matter protest across the United States in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the acknowledgement and denunciation of systemic racism in mainstream discourse has significantly increased. As more and more people agree that racism is a contemporary problem, an old question emerges: What do people mean when they say “racism”? This lecture course situates mainstream discourse about racism within racism’s contentious conceptual history, critically engages a dynamic interdisciplinary debate about the meaning of racism, and imagines what a it would take to achieve a world without racism.
    AFRI 0800 S01
    Primary Instructor
    LeSure

  • Black Protest Music

    This courses surveys African American protest music through research and performance. At every point in American history, African Americans have crafted music to speak out against racial injustices. This course highlights the music of three specific moments in African American history: 1) spirituals of the enslaved; 2) music of the classical phase of the Civil Rights movement; and 3) burgeoning protest music of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Students study the sociocultural contexts informing the performances of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé, among others. Students gain critical analytical skills for engaging music as cultural production, commodity, and vehicle of activism. Ultimately, this course equips students to situate BLM music within the longer history of African American musical activism, and it provides space for students to perform and compose black protest music.
    AFRI 1230 S01
    This course is part reading/research and part performance. Despite the hybrid designation, this course is taught fully online. You should expect that all or some portion of the regular Wednesday class time will be used for the purpose of class meeting via Zoom. Course overrides will be given in the first week of class after students have a chance to attend the first class and complete a survey explaining why they want to take the course and how they could contribute. The survey will be available during the first class. You must complete the survey to obtain a course override.
    Primary Instructor
    Barron

  • Courses of Interest to Concentrators in Africana Studies

    The following courses may be taken for concentration credit. Please see the sponsoring department for the time and location of each course.

    American Studies
    AMST 2220T Slavery in the Recent American Imagination
    Music
    MUSC 1939 Social Justice and the Musical Afrofuture
    Religious Studies
    RELS 0085B Blues People:Topics in African American Religion and Culture
    AFRI XLIST 0

  • Africana Studies Junior Seminar

    This junior seminar course is designed to support students’ growth as academic writers and will prepare them to better complete their culminating senior thesis projects. While specifically geared towards Africana Studies concentrators, the class is open to any undergraduate student who has successfully completed AFRI 0090: An Introduction to Africana Studies and at least four semesters of coursework overall towards the Bachelor’s degree. Course materials will delve deeply into the history, spaces, peoples and cultures of the African Diaspora, exploring a selection of critical writings, performance pieces, fiction and non-fiction works by leading scholars and artists.
    AFRI 1330 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Biggs

  • Archiving the African Diaspora: The Life and Works of Anani Dzidzienyo

    This course will allow students to work on archiving and preserving the materials of Professor Anani Dzidzienyo, ultimately creating a capsule collection that can be maintained within the university. More details to follow.
    AFRI 1941 S01
    The course will explore the life and scholarship of the late Brown University Africana Studies professor Anani Dzidzienyo (1941-2020). In addition to extensive transnational research, a significant part of his scholarly life involved teaching and mentoring undergraduate students for over forty years, which radically shaped the field of African and African Diaspora Studies. Professor Dzidzienyo left us a significant collection of books and original documents which will be donated to the Brown University and Tougaloo College libraries. Under the supervision of professional librarians, students will be tasked with organizing these materials for donation, providing them with practical knowledge on how to organize archives and prepare materials for future research scholars. We will also create a digital curriculum vitae of Professor Dzidzienyo’s published writings and a visual biography that compiles photos and videos from his life. Some of this classwork will be shared in the international memorial being held at Brown in the late Spring.
    Primary Instructor
    Perry

  • Monuments, Counter-Monuments, and the Representation of the Slave Past

    This course is concerned with the memorialization and representation of the slave past through monumental form in the Atlantic world. Beginning with a range of theoretical considerations of the concepts of monument and counter-monument, we engage the writings of Ana-Lucia Araujo, Stephen M. Best, Huey Copeland, Cheryl Finlay, Saidiya Hartmann, Katherine McKittrick, Sowande’ M. Mustakeem, Christina Sharpe, Marita Sturken, Lisa Woolfork, James Young, and others. Using these various approaches and theories, we examine monuments located in a range of countries including Benin, Ghana, Senegal, England, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados, Guadeloupe, and the United States.
    AFRI 2005 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Ater