All students will be required to take six core courses. Three of the core courses correspond to our tracks. We also require our students to take three introductory, interdisciplinary courses: one covering the diaspora, a second dealing with the concept of memory, and a third focused on conceptual methodologies. The first three core courses will be taught by core African American Studies faculty; the second three will be taught (either independently or in teams) by African-American Studies faculty and faculty from related fields. The six core required courses, then, are: 1. Conceptual Methodologies; 2. Diasporic Theory and Diaspora Tropes; 3. Memory Studies; 4. Black Historiography; 5. Black Expressive Arts; and 6. Black Social and Political Thought.
CURRICULAR TRACKS
The History Track:
AFAM History Faculty:
Darlene Clark Hine
Martha Biondi
Sherwin Bryant
Courses to be Offered by Core History Faculty:
Historicizing the Early Modern Black Atlantic (Bryant)
Comparative Slavery (Bryant)
Slavery, Freedom and the Gendered Worlds of Blacks in Colonial Latin America (Bryant)
Civil Rights and Black Power (Biondi)
African Americans and the World: Black Internationalism in the Twentieth Century (Biondi)
African Americans and the City: Labor, Politics and Culture in the 20th Century (Biondi)
Race, Class, Gender and the Professions in the Diaspora (Hine)
History of Black Women in Diaspora: Race and Gender in Slavery and Freedom (Hine)
Other Offerings History Track:
Black Feminist Theory/Theories (Gender Studies 380): S. Richards
Slavery and Emancipation in Comparative Perspective (History 492): D. Penningroth
Running Black: Race to Empire (History 492): H. Neptune
Islam in West Africa (History 000): B. Ware
Method and Theory in African History (History 405):
African History (History 450):
Topics in African History (History 460):
Expressive Arts, Literature and Cultural Studies (EALCS) Track:
Core EALCS Faculty:
Sandra Richards
Dwight A. McBride
Alex Weheliye
Courses to be Offered by Core EALCS Faculty:
African American Literary Criticism and Theory (McBride)
The Literature of Slavery and Abolitionist Discourse (McBride)
Issues in Black Queer Studies (McBride)
The African American Novel (Weheliye)
Contemporary African American Literature (Weheliye)
Black Speculative Fiction (Weheliye)
Figurations of Humanity in Afro-Diasporic Literature and Culture (Weheliye)
Other Offerings EALCS Track:
Black Feminist Theory/Theories (Gender Studies 380): S. Richards
Studies in Drama: African and Caribbean Theatres (Theatre 545): S. Richards
Studies in Drama: African Theatre (Theatre 545): S. Richards
Performances of Memory in the Black Atlantic (Theatre 000): S. Richards
Black Independent Film and Video (African American Studies 000): J. Brody
Black British Cultural Studies (African American Studies 000): J. Brody
James Baldwin (African American Studies 000): Brody/McBride
Black Queer Theory Meets Black Feminist Theory (Performance Studies 000): P. Johnson/S. Richards
Issues of Representation in Visual Culture (English 000): J. Brody
Ethnographic Methods (Performance Studies 000): P. Johnson
Studies in Race, Gender and Sexuality (Performance Studies 000): P. Johnson
Studies in African Art (Art History 486):
Studies in Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature (English 465):
French Colonialism in the 18th Century: Discourses, Fictions, Practices (French): D. Garroway
The Aporetic Ideal: Blackness and Silence in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory (Comparative Literature 481):
K. Bell
Post-Structuralism and Minority Discourse (English 481): A. Weheliye
Sonic Afro-Modernity (English 471): A. Weheliye
African American Folklore (Performance Studies 000): P. Johnson
Black Popular Culture (Performance Studies 000): P. Johnson
Black Arts Movement (Performance Studies 000): P. Johnson
Black Performance Studies/Theory (Performance Studies 000): P. Johnson
Politics, Society and Policy (PSP) Track:
AFAM PSP Faculty:
Mary Pattillo
Celeste Watkins
Barnor Hesse
Richard Iton
Courses to be Offered by Core PSP Faculty:
Class Debates in the Black Community (Pattillo)
Inequality and Public Policy in Black America (Watkins)
Sociological Perspectives on Black Families (Watkins)
Racism, Deconstruction and Governmentality (Hesse)
Genealogy of Politics and the Political in the African Diaspora (Hesse)
Black Vernacular Movements (Hesse/Iton)
African American Politics (Iton)
Race and Constitutional Order (Iton)
Race, Ethnicity and American Politics (Iton)
Other Offerings PSP Track:
Black Queer Theory Meets Black Feminist Theory (AFAM 000): Johnson/Richards
Transnational Black Politics (Political Science 490): M. Hanchard
Black Political Thought (Political Science 490): M. Hanchard
Race, State and Nationalism (Political Science 490): M. Hanchard
Black American Politics in the Post-Civil Rights Era (Political Science 490): R. Rogers
Immigrant Politics and Race in American Cities (Political Science 490): R. Rogers
Sociology of the Black Experience (Sociology 440): A. Morris
Welfare States and Inequalities: Class, Gender and Race (Sociology 440): A. Orloff
Seminar in African Philosophy (Philosophy 466): S. Diagne
Critical Race Theory (Philosophy 467): R. Gooding-Williams
Seminar in African American Philosophy (Philosophy 467):
Black Feminist Theory/Theories (Gender Studies 380): S. Richards
Stereotyping and Prejudice (Psychology 486):
Theories of Economic Development (Economics 425):
Globalization and Its Discontents: Race, Gender and Culture in Capitalist Histories (Anthropology 490): M. Di Leonardo
African American Child Development (Human Development 451): Jelani Mandara
AFAM 401 Conceptual Methodologies (1) Generic concepts that are recurrently deployed in African American studies, concepts developed specifically in the context of African American/African Diaspora studies, techniques of conceptual critique, analysis, and argumentation.
AFAM 410 Black Feminist and Black Queer Studies (1) Team taught course stages a series of dialogues between US black feminist theory and black queer theory through the discussion of such topics as the legacy of slavery; activism; work, family and self-esteem; body politics, i.e. sexuality, reproduction, HIV/AIDS, popular culture representation; appropriations and alliances.
AFAM 425-0 Race, Poverty, and Public Policy in America (1) Students will develop an in-depth understanding of the scope of poverty in America and consider competing theories on its causes. Students will read work that theorizes the role of racial stratification in the creation and perpetuation of economic marginalization, with special attention given to ethnographic work on the everyday lives of poor families.
AFAM 430 Black Women in 20th Century America (1) This course is designed to explore and analyze the “script” of black women’s lives in twentieth century America. It places the “scripted” lives in historical context in order to deepen our understanding of the myriad forces (political, economic, social, cultural and intellectual) and events (migration, war, civil rights and feminist movements) that shape the challenges and opportunities that impeded and facilitated their struggles for self-realization and freedom.
AFAM 432 Black Feminist Theories (1) Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach with readings drawn from history, sociology, drama, and popular culture, this course provides an in-depth survey of major constituent elements of (U.S.) Black Feminist Theory(ies).
AFAM 440 Slavery and Abolitionist Discourse (1) This course will investigate the rise of abolitionist discourse in the West; that is, the ways in which resistance to chattel slavery has been thought and written about. We will discuss the evolution of the terms of the debates surrounding slavery from the latter part of the 18th century to the late 19th Century, including some attention to the philosophical discourse of “natural rights” and its dissemination.
AFAM 441-0 History of Black Women in the Diaspora (1) The objective of this reading seminar is to uncover a more inclusive history by examining Black women, individually and collectively, locally and in Diaspora, in all their rich diversity, from the era of slavery through the modern era’s ongoing quest for human rights and dignity for all. To counter prevailing assumptions and constructions of the monolithic Black woman, the course interrogates and challenges definitions of Black women by probing categories of difference, including ethnicity, religion, class, sexuality, migrant/immigrant status.
AFAM 442 Africans in Colonail Latin America (1) Historiography of Africans and their descendents in Latin America, from early colonial times to abolition. Focuses on a series of historical problems affecting Africans, including the realities of slavery, free black life, gender and sexuality, culture, and questions of identity formation.
AFAM 443-0 Queer Looks…On Black Visual Culture (1) This course takes up issues in both Black Studies and Queer Studies that focus upon various understandings of “queer looks” (e.g. as a noun/verb phrase, adjective/verb).
AFAM 444 Civil Rights/Black Liberation (1) This course is intended to familiarize graduate students with scholarship on what many historians have termed ‘the long civil rights movement.’ Beginning with the labor activism of the 1930s and the global wars of the 1940s, we will treat United States civil rights struggles as part of the broader anti-colonial upheaval of the 20th century.
AFAM 445 Historicizing Race in Latin America (1) This graduate seminar offers a survey of the principle themes, sources, methods and arguments animating scholarship on race, sexuality, and modernity in Latin America.
AFAM 448 Africans in Colonial Latin America (1) Explores the history of African-descended people throughout Latin America during the period from 1492 to 1800, emphasizing the varied experiences of slavery and freedom, the emergence of race and colonial categories of difference, and the gendered lives of racialized colonial subjects.
AFAM 450 African American Literary Criticism and Theory (1) Beginning with some discussion of the literary and cultural criticism of the 1920's and 30's, we will chart a rather chronological and topic driven genealogy through much of the twentieth century concluding with the advent of post structuralism in the academy and the ramifications that has had for African American literary and cultural studies.
AFAM 455 20th Century Intellectual and Popular Culture This course seeks to examine the rise and the persistence of the notion of black cultural/racial authenticity in the twentieth century from the debates between DuBois and Washington, Hughes and Locke, and Hurston, Wright and Baldwin. Students will consider the role that the advent of post-structuralism in the academy has had on black intellectual production (with particular regard to issues of class) and how black cultural production has fared politically in a late capitalist U.S. society.
AFAM 460 Race, Politics, Society, and Culture (1) A core introductory course on race-related issues in the social sciences.
AFAM 465 Black Chicago (1) This course focuses on the presence of African-Americans in Chicago from the turn of the 20th Century to the present. It brings together works of biography, music, sociology, photography, art, political science, and history. The goal of the class is that students understand the contributions, struggles, and future of African Americans to and in Chicago as a window into the broader story of black life and race relations in the urban U.S.
AFAM 470 Black Activist Debates (1) This course examines selected critical debates in African American social movements and political advocacy in the twentieth century. Rather than seeing African Americans as united and monolithic in their approach to tactics or positions on issues, we will explore difference, debate and sometimes intense conflict.
Last updated: May 19 2008 3:20PM
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