Course Schedule

AFAS 150B1 – Contemporary Afro Brazil

This course challenges historical and contemporary popular culture perceptions of Brazil as a tourist haven and paradise replete with festivities and beautiful beaches while also reinforcing an interdisciplinary and multiple perspective approach to the study of Afro-Brazilian people's history, cultures, arts, music, dance, cinema, cuisines, and sports, and the protracted systemic discrimination and exclusion from political and economic rights, as well as the racial and educational inequalities and disparities that Brazilians of African descent have experienced over the years.

AFAS 160A1 – Traditions and Societies of the World - The Africana Experience

This course will introduce students to the fundamental issues and concepts in the Africana experience in Africa and the United States from a humanist and interdisciplinary perspectives. Principal topics of discussion will be drawn from areas of history, philosophy, political-economy, literature and the arts, religion and society.

AFAS 160D1 – Introduction to African American Literature

Introduction to African American literature will explore the linguistic and cultural roots and traditions of literary writing by African Americans in three centuries of American history focusing on select readings in poetry, drama, non-fiction, and fictional prose. The overall goal of the course is to introduce students to different perspectives of American history, through an Africana lens, and apply the different genres, contexts, and content of literary production by African American writers from the 1700s to the late 20th century, to an overall critique of American Culture.

AFAS 200 – Introduction to Africana Studies

Course provides a comprehensive understanding of the African American experience as grounded in the humanities. A broad investigation of Africana history and culture and its subsequent evolution in the United States.

AFAS 218 – Introduction to Hip-Hop Dance

When you think of hip-hop, you often think of gangsters, thugs, pimps, drugs, crime, wealth, violence ,and misogyny. Students taking this course will be expected to take the artist perspective to dig deeper into the historical underpinnings of where this contemporary art form comes from as well as its evolution and proliferation nationally and beyond(globally). This beginning level class combines practical movement practices based on actual hip-hop dance styles with straight lectures and lively discussions that help students to be critical, analytical, logical, questioning, reflective and evaluative thinkers This holistic approach which combines theory and practice, will furnish learners with the relevant cultural, historical, and practical knowledge of hip-hop dance and cultures in general. Similarly, in order to fully examine and acquire the different hip-hop dance and movement styles, skills, techniques, vocabulary, and cultures emanating from particular historical and evolutionary periods and geographic regions in the USA and globally, the course will adopt ahistorical-geographical approach. The ultimate objective is to challenge and encourage students to take on the lens of the artists and independently create final dance projects where they dig deeper and get immersed in to the core values, knowledge, theories, world views, concepts, and ideas specific to the Africana Studies discipline. Students are not required to have prior dance knowledge to enroll in this class and will participate at their ability levels. To demonstrate the student's mastery of disciplinary content, methodologies, skills, knowledge and value systems, the class will culminate with an independently conceived practical performance, or a digital project accompanied by a critical/analytical write up.

AFAS 220 – Introduction to African American Studies

Cross Listed

Introductory survey of the literature, history, culture and social issues affecting Black Americans.

AFAS 260 – Ethnic and Race Relations in the United States

Cross Listed

Analysis of minority relations and mass movements in urban society; trends in the modern world, with special reference to present-day race problems and social conflict.

AFAS 302 – Africana Studies Research Approaches

This course is designed to provide students with skills in conducting social science research in the field of Africana Studies. The course will consist of discussions of the role of knowledge, the various methods by which knowledge is acquired, and the manner that interpretations of knowledge occur.

AFAS 304B – The Social Construction of Race: Blackness

In constructing this course, the recognition of Whiteness/Blackness is not solely a reactionary response to challenges from persons of color: it is also a reflection of the need to provide a narrative of Whiteness/Blackness that intends an understanding of the notion of Whiteness/Blackness as a racial category and the implications of this categorization and association. For example, naming Whiteness displaces it from the unmarked status that is itself an effect of dominance. Within the particular disciplines of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies, Whiteness, Blackness and Race have come to be earnest subjects of Study. Being White or Black in the 21st Century, however, is far from straightforward. It is riddled with ambiguity and marked by a general sense of racial angst as to what it means to be White or Black. This course will attempt to respond to the question: what does it mean to be Black/White in our global climate?

AFAS 306 – African-American Autobiographies: Women and Their Histories

Cross Listed

Students will gain insight into the historical and cultural factors that have created, and continue to perpetuate gender and ethnic inequity. Students will come to understand African American writers, particularly women, as historical agents and self-defined individuals. While the course will emphasize the multiple roles of African American women, as portrayed autobiographically it also incorporates the historical struggles of those around them. It is my goal that through the course material students will see how African Americans are constantly recreating themselves in the face of adversity.

AFAS 330 – Minority Groups and American Politics

Cross Listed · Writing Emphasis Course

Political problems of the poor; analysis of systematic poverty in the U.S. and theories of causation; selected policy problems: education, housing, job training, enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes; future of "power" movements.

AFAS 335 – Rap, Culture and God

Cross Listed

This course is a study of popular culture and religion in African-American and Latin@ communities, with a focus on the place of rap music in the cultural identity of these traditions. The class will begin with a study of some major themes in cultural studies concerning identity, class, race, and gender in addition to a study of the role of religion in Black and Latin@ communities. We will consider the approaches and self-understandings of identity and culture in rap music with special attention to the voices of protest, resistance, and spirituality among rap artists.

AFAS 342 – Writers, Women and the Gods

Cross Listed

In order to conceptualize the way gender and ethnicity has shaped women's lives in the public and private domain students will "hear" the voices of African American women in ethnography, history and literature as we discuss the Africana concepts of life, health, beauty and family. The experiences of these women, as expressed in literature have become "formidable" presences in African American culture and history. The self-expression and self-definition, expressed by African American women's voices have generated social and political changes in American history that have also impacted the dominant Euro-American culture of American society.

AFAS 363 – #Black Lives Matter Across The Americas: Race & Racism in Latin America

Cross Listed

How are race and racism perceived and experienced in countries in Latin America particularly such as Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia where a mixed-race ideology and the myth of racial equality have traditionally been at the core of national identity? This class critically analyzes notions of race and anti-racist activism to examine the ideologies and circumstances of the political structure, race-targeted public policies, and black activism in contemporary Latin America.

AFAS 371 – Hip-Hop Cinema

This course provides a strong foundation in the history and development of hip-hop cinema from Africana Studies, Cinema and Cultural Studies perspectives. Major films, theories, and movements are studied in their historical, social, and cultural context, with a particular focus on the aesthetics of visual language and cinematic techniques. Interdisciplinary analysis will allow for viewing hip hop and cinema in revolutionary but academic ways.

AFAS 373 – US & Francophone Hip-Hop Cultures

Cross Listed

Examination of the historical, ethical, social, and political impacts and perspectives of hip-hop artistic practices and works on communities and societies in the United States and in the French-speaking world. Taught in English.

AFAS 376 – Global Soccer

Cross Listed

While the British invented "football" (as soccer is known around the world), the French were key players in structuring it worldwide. This interdisciplinary course is about the emergence and growing notoriety of soccer in France, the French - speaking world, and as a worldwide global phenomenon through explorations in the following areas: cultural and global studies, philosophy, history, institutions, anthropology, sociology, and language. The course presents several important themes that allow to understand the popularity and identification of the populations with soccer worldwide, as well as the human values it represents: olympism, pacifism, imperialism, colonialism and post - colonialism , national identities, race, politics, gender, and globalization.

AFAS 423 – Topics in Caribbean Culture, Literature and Identity

Cross Listed

The aim of the course is to investigate African Caribbean writings in English on issues from slavery through the 20th century. the key focus will be on issues from what is now considered the post colonial islands and countries. It will also take into account, the growing body of literature by Caribbean women writers.

AFAS 436 – Civil War and Reconstruction, U.S. 1861-1878

Cross Listed

Political, constitutional, economic, and military developments in the U.S. and the Confederacy during and after the Civil War.

AFAS 493 – Internship

Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of training and practice in actual service in a technical, business, or governmental establishment.

AFAS 498 – Senior Capstone

A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies. Senior standing required.

AFAS 498H – Honors Thesis

Honors Course · Writing Emphasis Course

An honors thesis is required of all the students graduating with honors. Students ordinarily sign up for this course as a two-semester sequence. The first semester the student performs research under the supervision of a faculty member; the second semester the student writes an honors thesis.

AFAS 150B1 – Contemporary Afro Brazil

This course challenges historical and contemporary popular culture perceptions of Brazil as a tourist haven and paradise replete with festivities and beautiful beaches while also reinforcing an interdisciplinary and multiple perspective approach to the study of Afro-Brazilian people's history, cultures, arts, music, dance, cinema, cuisines, and sports, and the protracted systemic discrimination and exclusion from political and economic rights, as well as the racial and educational inequalities and disparities that Brazilians of African descent have experienced over the years.

AFAS 160A1 – Traditions and Societies of the World - The Africana Experience

This course will introduce students to the fundamental issues and concepts in the Africana experience in Africa and the United States from a humanist and interdisciplinary perspectives. Principal topics of discussion will be drawn from areas of history, philosophy, political-economy, literature and the arts, religion and society.

AFAS 160D1 – Introduction to African American Literature

Introduction to African American literature will explore the linguistic and cultural roots and traditions of literary writing by African Americans in three centuries of American history focusing on select readings in poetry, drama, non-fiction, and fictional prose. The overall goal of the course is to introduce students to different perspectives of American history, through an Africana lens, and apply the different genres, contexts, and content of literary production by African American writers from the 1700s to the late 20th century, to an overall critique of American Culture.

AFAS 200 – Introduction to Africana Studies

Course provides a comprehensive understanding of the African American experience as grounded in the humanities. A broad investigation of Africana history and culture and its subsequent evolution in the United States.

AFAS 208 – History of Africa

Cross Listed

This course is an introduction to the history of an enormous continent, Africa. Because of the size of the geography, population and time covered, one of the main purposes of this course is to pave the way to the upper division regional and thematic classes. We will move our way through African history both temporally and thematically. Lectures will introduce key themes and ideas and in section you will discuss historical evidence for African communities, cultures and ideas. This course is suitable to those who know nothing of Africa, and to those who are considering taking an upper division lecture classes or seminar in African history or Africana Studies.

AFAS 218 – Introduction to Hip-Hop Dance

When you think of hip-hop, you often think of gangsters, thugs, pimps, drugs, crime, wealth, violence ,and misogyny. Students taking this course will be expected to take the artist perspective to dig deeper into the historical underpinnings of where this contemporary art form comes from as well as its evolution and proliferation nationally and beyond(globally). This beginning level class combines practical movement practices based on actual hip-hop dance styles with straight lectures and lively discussions that help students to be critical, analytical, logical, questioning, reflective and evaluative thinkers This holistic approach which combines theory and practice, will furnish learners with the relevant cultural, historical, and practical knowledge of hip-hop dance and cultures in general. Similarly, in order to fully examine and acquire the different hip-hop dance and movement styles, skills, techniques, vocabulary, and cultures emanating from particular historical and evolutionary periods and geographic regions in the USA and globally, the course will adopt ahistorical-geographical approach. The ultimate objective is to challenge and encourage students to take on the lens of the artists and independently create final dance projects where they dig deeper and get immersed in to the core values, knowledge, theories, world views, concepts, and ideas specific to the Africana Studies discipline. Students are not required to have prior dance knowledge to enroll in this class and will participate at their ability levels. To demonstrate the student's mastery of disciplinary content, methodologies, skills, knowledge and value systems, the class will culminate with an independently conceived practical performance, or a digital project accompanied by a critical/analytical write up.

AFAS 220 – Introduction to African American Studies

Cross Listed

Introductory survey of the literature, history, culture and social issues affecting Black Americans.

AFAS 249 – Images of Africa

Cross Listed

This course investigates how audiovisual media including feature films, documentaries, music videos, visual albums represent Africa. The emergence of digital technologies with widespread access transformed Africa's media landscape. Through this exploration of African audiovisual media, the course builds connections across the arts, social sciences, and humanities. Upon completing "Images of Africa," students will have an enhanced understanding of contemporary Africa from a variety of social positions as well as the skills to interpret audiovisual media and evaluate their significance in cultural and historical contexts by drawing on a critical repertoire across disciplines.

AFAS 280 – Brazilian Identity: Class, Race, and Citizenship

Cross Listed

This course takes representations and experiences of citizenship in modern Brazil as the springboard for the study of cross-cultural membership in society. How are understandings and experiences of citizenship bound up with the definition and institutionalization of race/ethnicity, class, and gender? This broad question will be examined in specific areas in Brazil such as public health, urban and rural development, environment, education, law, politics, and pop culture. The course covers theoretical readings and case studies from different geographical areas. Instructional materials are interdisciplinary, drawing mainly on the fields of History, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, and Geography.

AFAS 302 – Africana Studies Research Approaches

This course is designed to provide students with skills in conducting social science research in the field of Africana Studies. The course will consist of discussions of the role of knowledge, the various methods by which knowledge is acquired, and the manner that interpretations of knowledge occur.

AFAS 303 – Black Womanist Writers

Cross Listed

This course examines the lives and writings of Black women from selected ethnicities such as Caribbean, Canadian, Latin American and African American who, despite geography, form bridges to meet and develop a dialogue which enlightens us.

AFAS 304A – The Social Construction of Race: Whiteness

In constructing this course, the recognition of Whiteness/Blackness is not solely a reactionary response to challenges from persons of color; it is also a reflection of the need to provide a narrative of Whiteness/Blackness that intends an understanding of the notion of Whiteness/Blackness as a racial category and the implications of this categorization and association. For example, naming Whiteness displaced it from the unmarked, and unnamed status that is itself an effect of dominance. Within the particular disciplines of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies, Whiteness, Blackness and Race have come to be earnest subjects of study. Being White or Black in the 21st Century, however, is far from straightforward. It is riddled with ambiguity and marked by a general sense of racial angst as to what it means to be White or Black. This course will attempt to respond to the question: What does it mean to be Black/White in our global climate?

AFAS 306 – African-American Autobiographies: Women and Their Histories

Cross Listed

Students will gain insight into the historical and cultural factors that have created, and continue to perpetuate gender and ethnic inequity. Students will come to understand African American writers, particularly women, as historical agents and self-defined individuals. While the course will emphasize the multiple roles of African American women, as portrayed autobiographically it also incorporates the historical struggles of those around them. It is my goal that through the course material students will see how African Americans are constantly recreating themselves in the face of adversity.

AFAS 310 – Afro-Latin American Literature

Cross Listed

A bio-critical discussion/study of writers of African decent/extraction from Latin America.

AFAS 314 – Caribbean Literature and Culture (West Indies)

Cross Listed

The course examines how literature captures the multifaceted social, cultural, and political life of the Caribbean region.

AFAS 330 – Minority Groups and American Politics

Cross Listed · Writing Emphasis Course

Political problems of the poor; analysis of systematic poverty in the U.S. and theories of causation; selected policy problems: education, housing, job training, enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes; future of "power" movements.

AFAS 335 – Rap, Culture and God

Cross Listed

This course is a study of popular culture and religion in African-American and Latin@ communities, with a focus on the place of rap music in the cultural identity of these traditions. The class will begin with a study of some major themes in cultural studies concerning identity, class, race, and gender in addition to a study of the role of religion in Black and Latin@ communities. We will consider the approaches and self-understandings of identity and culture in rap music with special attention to the voices of protest, resistance, and spirituality among rap artists.

AFAS 342 – Writers, Women and the Gods

Cross Listed

In order to conceptualize the way gender and ethnicity has shaped women's lives in the public and private domain students will "hear" the voices of African American women in ethnography, history and literature as we discuss the Africana concepts of life, health, beauty and family. The experiences of these women, as expressed in literature have become "formidable" presences in African American culture and history. The self-expression and self-definition, expressed by African American women's voices have generated social and political changes in American history that have also impacted the dominant Euro-American culture of American society.

AFAS 371 – Hip-Hop Cinema

This course provides a strong foundation in the history and development of hip-hop cinema from Africana Studies, Cinema and Cultural Studies perspectives. Major films, theories, and movements are studied in their historical, social, and cultural context, with a particular focus on the aesthetics of visual language and cinematic techniques. Interdisciplinary analysis will allow for viewing hip hop and cinema in revolutionary but academic ways.

AFAS 374 – Dynamics of Protest in Africa and the Diaspora

Cross Listed

This course investigates how the dynamics of resistance and repression have shaped protest in Africa and the diaspora since the slave revolt in Saint-Domingue that produced modern-day Haiti (1791-1804). In the years since, uprisings have occurred that actively renegotiated freedoms, rights, and ideas of citizenship for peoples of African descent with a grounding in the French-speaking world. This course looks at a range of materials from historical documents, poetry, song, films, and fiction to deepen our understanding of how historical progress has been shaped by the dynamic interplay between resistance and repression.

AFAS 376 – Global Soccer

Cross Listed

While the British invented "football" (as soccer is known around the world), the French were key players in structuring it worldwide. This interdisciplinary course is about the emergence and growing notoriety of soccer in France, the French - speaking world, and as a worldwide global phenomenon through explorations in the following areas: cultural and global studies, philosophy, history, institutions, anthropology, sociology, and language. The course presents several important themes that allow to understand the popularity and identification of the populations with soccer worldwide, as well as the human values it represents: olympism, pacifism, imperialism, colonialism and post - colonialism , national identities, race, politics, gender, and globalization.

AFAS 423 – Topics in Caribbean Culture, Literature and Identity

Cross Listed

The aim of the course is to investigate African Caribbean writings in English on issues from slavery through the 20th century. the key focus will be on issues from what is now considered the post colonial islands and countries. It will also take into account, the growing body of literature by Caribbean women writers.

AFAS 441 – The History of African American Women from Slavery to Freedom

Cross Listed

The objective of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive knowledge of the history of Black people in American with a particular eye towards the experiences of Black women. The course will review some of the major historiographical issues presented by scholars of African American Women's History.

AFAS 482 – African Americans & U.S. Foreign Policy

Cross Listed

Introduction to African American involvement in shaping U.S. foreign policy from 1850 to the present. The objective is to show how African Americans organized to change both U.S. foreign policy toward Africa and the Caribbean as well as domestic racial policies by appealing to the international community. The course will highlight how U. S. foreign policy was reformulated by ruling elites to stave off international criticism of unjust domestic racial policies.

AFAS 493 – Internship

Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of training and practice in actual service in a technical, business, or governmental establishment.

AFAS 498 – Senior Capstone

A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies. Senior standing required.

AFAS 498H – Honors Thesis

Honors Course · Writing Emphasis Course

An honors thesis is required of all the students graduating with honors. Students ordinarily sign up for this course as a two-semester sequence. The first semester the student performs research under the supervision of a faculty member; the second semester the student writes an honors thesis.

AFAS 541 – The History of African American Women from Slavery to Freedom

Cross Listed

The objective of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive knowledge of the history of Black people in American with a particular eye towards the experiences of Black women. The course will review some of the major historiographical issues presented by scholars of African American Women's History. Graduate-level requirements include additional research papers.