Information For:

Courses for Fall 2020

  • 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 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Ayobade
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    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
    Primary Instructor
    Dzidzienyo
    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
    Primary Instructor
    Dzidzienyo
    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

  • An Introduction to Africana Studies

    This course introduces students to the vibrant and contested field of Africana Studies by critically exploring and analyzing the links and disjunctures in the cultural, political, and intellectual practices and experiences of people of African descent throughout the African diaspora. Beginning with a critical overview of the history, theoretical orientations, and multiple methodological strategies of the discipline, the course is divided into three thematic units that examine intellectuals, politics, and movements; identity construction and formation; and literary, cultural, and aesthetic theories and practices in the African diaspora.
    AFRI 0090 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Hamlin

  • Global Black Radicalism

    The decade from the mid-Sixties until the mid-Seventies witnessed the rise of Black Radicalism as a global phenomenon. The emergence of Black Power in the US, Brazil and the Caribbean, the consolidation of liberation struggles in Portuguese Africa and the rise of a Black Consciousness trend in Apartheid South Africa all represent key moments. What led young activists to embrace “Black Power?” What led to the emergence of Marxist movements in Portuguese Africa? What events in the Caribbean gave ascendancy to radical tendencies? And what forces contributed to the decline of these movements? This course seeks to answer these questions.
    AFRI 0670 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Meeks

  • Fela Kuti: African Freedom from Afrobeat to Afrobeats

    Miles Davis famously described Fela Kuti (1938-1997) as “the future of music.” Beyoncé’s attempt “to do something that sounds like Fela” saw her compose an unpublished 20-track album. Arguably Africa’s most prolific and controversial artist of the twentieth century, Fela continues to be invoked as musical genius and as icon of popular struggle. This course invites students to explore the complexities of Fela’s art and activism. We mobilize his life/work as a springboard for examining emergent debates about African identity—from postcolonial masculinity to the creative logics of African cities, from contemporary African youth culture to the gendered politics of cultural memory.
    AFRI 0980 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Ayobade

  • An Introduction to Africa

    Africa invokes myriad images in the global imagination. It figures in debates on the evolution of humans; in the formation of capitalism, and even as a counterpoint to discourses on human progress. This course interrogates how “Africa” gets mobilized in popular discourse in the US and beyond. How might we reconcile the idea of Africa with contemporary conditions of the African continent? We will not only examine Africa through a broad range of disciplinary perspectives; but also become familiar with social, cultural, political and economic diversity of the African continent. We will engage the disciplines of history, economics, politics, cultural studies and gender studies among others.
    AFRI 1060U S01
    Primary Instructor
    Ayobade

  • Voices Beneath the Veil

    VBV is an interdisciplinary exploration of African-American history and cultures through the analyses of Black authored plays from 1858 to the present. The course focuses on the development of a thesis paper, which includes an incremental re-writing process.
    AFRI 1110 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Terry-Morgan

  • Afro-Brazilians and the Brazilian Polity

    Explores the history and present-day conditions of Afro-Brazilians, looking specifically at the uses of Africana in contemporary Brazil, political and cultural movements among Afro-Brazilians, domestic politics and its external dimensions, and Brazilian race relations within a global comparative framework. Texts from a variety of disciplines. A reading knowledge of Portuguese is not required but students so advantaged should inform the instructor.
    AFRI 1210 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Dzidzienyo

  • Health Inequality in Historical Perspective

    Seminar takes a historical perspective to explore causes of health inequality. Draws on studies from the 19th century-present. Examines socio–political and economic context of health/disease, focusing on how race, class, and gender shape the experience of health, disease causality, and public health responses with emphasis on the COVID-19 pandemic. Includes health consequences of immigration and pandemics, incarceration, race-based medicine. Enrollment restricted to 20, second and third-year students.
    AFRI 1920 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Braun

  • Theories of Africana Thought: Intellectual History and Critical Theory

    This course will be a close reading of the various ideas, theories and practices of the thinkers, writers, artists and activitists whose work and practices have constituted an Africana intellectual tradition. In conducting this review we will examine questions around the formation and the history of thought and intellectual traditions in general. We will also think about the various fields of knowldege which have shaped Africana thought. The course therefore will spend some time working through the different meanings of intellectual work and critical thought and theory. Enrollment limited to 12 graduate students.
    AFRI 2001 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Henry

  • 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.

    Comparative Literature
    COLT 1610W Whites, White Jews and Us: Radical Black, Arab and Jewish Thinkers
    Education
    EDUC 1215 - Race Making and the US University
    English
    ENGL 1710J - Modern African Literature
    ENGL 1761F - Toni Morrison
    Modern Culture and Media
    MCM 2120P Photography on the Picket Line: Unlearning Imperial Formations of Photography
    AFRI XLIST 0

  • Methods in Africana Studies

    This graduate seminar brings together various methodological and theoretical approaches to interpreting Africana life, culture, thought, and politics. Placing special emphasis on emergent scholarship that shapes and reshapes the discipline of Africana Studies, we examine a selection of humanistic and social scientific studies of various local, national, and international contexts. Texts demonstrate the ways in which innovative interdisciplinary methods are crucial for understanding the complexity of the Africana world. We will give attention to the strategies scholars utilize to formulate their research questions, design their methodologies, and create new ideas that contribute to the advancement of Africana Studies scholarship.
    AFRI 2101 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Henry

  • Black Critique: Black Critical Theory - History, Literature, Politics, the Human Sciences of Being

    This class is about re-figuring black radical thought as a field of interdisciplinary critical theory. Working with the corpus of writers like Sylvia Wynter, WEB Du Bois and Frantz Fanon the course will seek to grapple with the practices, questions and ideas of Black thinkers around questions of the human, the figure of the black fugitive, the significance of enslaved labor to the capitalism, Black internationalism, black feminism and the ways in which questions of history have been reconfigured in Black thought. The course is an reading intensive one and is open to all graduate students.
    AFRI 2300 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Bogues

  • The Politics of Gender in the Caribbean Novel

    This course will examine 20th Century Caribbean Literature as a genre, which poses challenges to colonialism and raises profound questions of sovereignty. It will examine how Contemporary Caribbean Literature contributes to the world of literature in general.
    AFRI 0850 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Maye

  • Advanced RPM Playwriting

    Third level of RPM Playwriting; for students that have successfully completed RPM Playwriting and Intermediate RPM Playwriting (workshop). Instructor permission.
    AFRI 1050A S01
    Primary Instructor
    Terry-Morgan

  • Intermediate RPM Playwriting

    Second level of RPM Playwriting; for students that want to continue developing their RPM plays or want to begin a new project (workshop).
    AFRI 1050D S01
    Primary Instructor
    Terry-Morgan

  • RPM Playwriting

    Research-to-Performance Method (RPM) Playwriting guides students through the process of developing new plays that are informed by scholarly research (workshop).
    AFRI 1050E S01
    Primary Instructor
    Terry-Morgan

  • Gospel Titans, Divas, and Dynasties

    The course will explore some of contemporary black gospel music’s most celebrated artists, as a lens into gospel music history and the challenges of commercializing religious folk music. This course will explore gospel music performance and commerce as defined by artists such as The Clark Sisters, who were recently celebrated in the biopic The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel, which first aired on the Lifetime network Sunday, April 12, 2020. The course will also explore other gospel music-making families, such as The Winans, The Staples Singers, Mary Mary, and The Crouches.
    AFRI 0690 S01
    This is a First-Year Seminar. This course is fully online. You should expect that all or some portion of the regular class time—Mondays, 3-5:30 PM, US Eastern Time—may be used for the purpose of live discussion via Zoom or other videoconferencing tool. After you officially register for this class and before the second week of class, you will receive a survey from the instructor to help determine the exact format of this remote First-Year Seminar.
    Primary Instructor
    Barron

  • Monuments, History, and Memory in the United States

    In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, monuments tied to the violent histories of slavery, colonialism, and white supremacy have received renewed interest and debate. Protestors and individuals have defaced, toppled, and petitioned for the removal of Confederate monuments and statues to the white male power elite. This symbolic retributive violence and sometimes ritual care signals a challenge to the long-lived monument. This reading course explores public monuments and the ways in which artists and communities have negotiated history and the politics of memory and remembrance in the United States. We will evaluate the meaning and purpose of monuments that define American public spaces, investigating the problematic narratives and historic controversies surrounding such objects. The removal of monuments asks us to question whose histories have been forgotten, ignored, or suppressed, and what monumental justice might look like.
    AFRI 0840 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Ater

  • Tell the Story: The Afro-Diasporic Experience Through Documentary Film

    Documentary films have grown into an influential art form that has influenced politics, culture, social movements and how we see the world. They are relied on to sort out fact from fiction in an increasingly complex world where the lines continue to blur. Through film screenings, lectures, readings, critical analysis and group discussions, the course examines the changing nature of the documentary as it relates to how films documenting the Black Experience are conceived, told and distributed in different mediums. We will also look at how these films have been influenced as much by technology and ethical, social, cultural and political movements, as it has by the individual choices of the filmmakers.
    AFRI 1460 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Richen