Course Schedule

AFAS 150B1 – Contemporary Afro Brazil

Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 1 Individuals & Societies/150 · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity · Gen Ed Attribute: World Cultures and Societies · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Humanist

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

Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 1 Traditions and Cultures/160 · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity · Gen Ed Attribute: World Cultures and Societies · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Humanist

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

Gen Ed: Tier 1 Traditions and Cultures/160 · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity, US · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Humanist

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

Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Humanist

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

Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Arts · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity, US · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Artist

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 · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Individuals and Societies

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

AFAS 245 – African Literature Matters

Cross Listed · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity · Gen Ed Attribute: World Cultures and Societies · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Artist

Introduction to African literature coming from the African continent and the diaspora, which explores the representation of Black experience in a variety of geographical and cultural settings. Select themes (such as liberation, oppression, identity) will invite students to reflect on current debates in historical perspective. Taught in English.

AFAS 249 – Images of Africa

Cross Listed · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities · Gen Ed Attribute: Writing · Gen Ed Attribute: World Cultures and Societies · Gen Ed: Building Connections

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 302 – Africana Studies Research Approaches

Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis

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 306 – African-American Autobiographies: Women and Their Histories

Cross Listed · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Individuals and Societies

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 308 – The African Slave Trades

Cross Listed · Writing Emphasis Course

This course examines the history of the African slave trade. The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the world's largest forced migration between continents, but it was only one of many slave trades that shaped societies throughout the world. In order to understand the historical significance of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we will compare it to other slaveries. In examining the historical significance and legacies of the slave trade, we will link the histories of Africa to that of the New World and to Europe. There continue to be heated debates about the volume and impact of the slave trade on African and New World societies. We will explore these debates. The course will also examine the changing meaning of the term "slavery" and examine some modern forms of slavery that persist to this day.

AFAS 310 – Afro-Latin American Literature

Cross Listed · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Humanist

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

AFAS 314 – Caribbean Literature and Culture (West Indies)

Cross Listed · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Humanist

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

AFAS 335 – Rap, Culture and God

Cross Listed · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity, US · Gen Ed: Building Connections

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 · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities

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

Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Arts · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity, US · Gen Ed Attribute: Writing · Gen Ed: Building Connections

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 · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Humanities · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity, US · Gen Ed Attribute: World Cultures and Societies · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Artist

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 · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Individuals and Societies · Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity and Equity · Gen Ed Attribute: World Cultures and Societies · Gen Ed: Exploring Perspectives, Social Scientist

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 444 – Rethinking Race and Health in the United States

Cross Listed · Gen Ed: Diversity Emphasis · Gen Ed: Tier 2 Individuals and Societies

This course is designed to expose undergraduates to the complexity of cultural and ethnic considerations as they pertain to the health and well being of underrepresented groups in the U. S., such as, African Americans. Drawing on perspectives from public health, the social/behavioral sciences, and perspectives from Africana Studies, we will engage in the comparative study of health cultures. We will explore the historical and contemporary multilayered social, cultural, political, and economic systems that engender the social and cultural determinants that shape health status, health behavior and health inequalities of Africana peoples in the United States.

AFAS 466 – Racism and Resistance in Latin America

Cross Listed

In this course, we will explore race and resistance across the Americas. Taking the Brazilian situation as a springboard, this class will critically analyze notions of race, racism, and anti-racism. Students will have the opportunity to work on projects that explore racial ideology, structural/institutional racism, and anti-racist resistance across the Americas. Through a social science lens, students will select, examine, and share examples of racial injustice in a particular country, paying attention to how race has been a determining factor in discrimination, exclusion, and resistance. Course materials are organized around critical discussions of the deeply seated racial inequality and discrimination that impact all aspects of economic and social life, as well as the ways in which different forms of mobilization confront racism.

AFAS 493 – Internship

Engagement: Community Partnership · Engagement: Diversity and Identity

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 543 – Francophone Literature and Cinema

Cross Listed

Designed to help students gain a better sense of the Francophone world's diverse histories, cultures, and societies. Graduate-level requirements include more emphasis on research, theory, and criticism, and more substantial assignments in terms of length and quality. Graduate-level requirements include more emphasis on individual research (reading of and reports on secondary sources mandatory). More substantial assignments in terms of length and quality.

AFAS 566 – Racism and Resistance in Latin America

Cross Listed

In this course, we will explore race and resistance across the Americas. Taking the Brazilian situation as a springboard, this class will critically analyze notions of race, racism, and anti-racism. Students will have the opportunity to work on projects that explore racial ideology, structural/institutional racism, and anti-racist resistance across the Americas. Through a social science lens, students will select, examine, and share examples of racial injustice in a particular country, paying attention to how race has been a determining factor in discrimination, exclusion, and resistance. Course materials are organized around critical discussions of the deeply seated racial inequality and discrimination that impact all aspects of economic and social life, as well as the ways in which different forms of mobilization confront racism.