Fall 2023 Courses

Instructor: N. Fadeke Castor

CRN: 11306

Days, Time: TF 1:35 pm – 3:15 pm

Description:

Explores several of the possible historical, sociological, cultural, and political avenues of study in the broad interdisciplinary spectrum of African-American studies. Provides an introductory overview of the field and offers an opportunity to identify areas for more specific focus.

Instructor: Nicole Aljoe

CRN: 16710

Days, Time: TF 9:50 am – 11:30 am

Description:

This course will focus on 18th and 19th century writing by members of the African Diaspora. Recent archival research and canon reconsideration has revealed the wealth and variety of texts written by black writers at this time. Drawing on this work, we will investigate the ways in which these early Black writers engaged with a range of issues such as the nature of the individual subject; human rights; gender and class; the rapid expansion of print culture; the development of the novel and other genres; notions of Africa; and of course, notions of freedom and enslavement. Through reading a variety of texts such as: poetry, speeches, essays, letters, fiction, slave narratives, biographies, and autobiographies—we will not only get a sense of the complexity of 18thand 19thcentury trans-Atlantic literary cultures but also appreciate how these writers created the foundations for various literary traditions across the African Diaspora. Cross-listed with ENG 2296.

Instructor: Kabria Baumgartner

CRN: 20387

Days, Time: WF 11:45 am – 1:25 pm

Description:

Traces the presence of African-descended people in North America. Emphasizes the historical and cultural links between Africa and North America that have shaped the Black experience in the United States. Explores and analyzes the institution of slavery, the role of free Black communities, the Civil War and emancipation, and Black leadership and protest during the Reconstruction era. Introduces students to the historian’s craft, theoretical debates concerning race and gender, and the persistence of the past in the present. Cross-listed with HIST 2337.

Instructor: Matthew Lee

CRN: 11643

Days, Time: MR 11:45 am – 1:25 pm

Description: Examines racism, racial identity, and theories of social change and racial empowerment primarily
within the U.S. context. Highlights different ways in which racism and racial privilege have been experienced by different racial communities, more specifically at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. Offers students an opportunity to learn ways to promote racial empowerment and equity. Using theory from primarily psychology and sociology, the course investigates the impact of social systems and institutions on individual-level and group experiences of racism. Investigates students’ own racial identities, a deeper understanding of institutional inequalities and intersectionality, and practical skills in leadership and community building that can promote positive social change and racial equality. Cross-listed with SOCL and HUSV 2355.

Instructor: Patrice Collins

CRN: 20810

Days, Time: TF 1:35 pm – 3:15 pm

Description: Provides students with an overview of the role and treatment of racial/ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system. Covers historical and theoretical frameworks for understanding the relationship between race, crime, and criminal justice. In so doing, students become familiar with trends and patterns in criminal offending by racial/ethnic minorities, as well as system response to such behavior.

Instructor: Anjanette Chan Tack

CRN: 20467

Days, Time: MR 11:45 am – 1:25 pm

Description:

Examines the comparative racialization of Blacks and Asians in the Americas and relations between these communities. Introduces sociological theories of race/ethnicity, a chronology of Afro-Asian relations in the United States, and the impact of 1970s deindustrialization and post–1965 Asian immigration. Covers the internationalism of Black and Asian leaders (e.g., W.E.B. du Bois and Mao Tse-Tung) in the developing nations and the overlapping Civil Rights, Black Power, and Asian American movements. Cross-listed with SOCL 4526.

Instructor: Layla Brown

CRN: 20472

Days, Time: WF 11:45 am – 1:25 pm

Description:

Introduces the history of Afro-Latin America and of Black identities particular to this region. Frameworks such as transnational migration and diaspora provide an entry to the specific histories of African-descended people in the countries in the region known as Latin America and contemporary interpretations and revisions of that history. Covers topics including the history of slavery in the Americas; the Haitian Revolution; debates about “racial democracy”; and the relationship between gender, race, and empire. Explores the relationship between scholarship and struggle, social analysis, and social transformation.

Instructor: Richard Wamai; John Olawepo

CRN: 15313; 17954

Days, Time: TF 1:35 pm – 3:15 pm; T 11:45 am – 1:25 pm, R 2:50 pm – 4:30 pm

Description:

Introduces global health in the context of an interdependent and globalized world focusing on four main areas of analysis: infrastructure of global health; diseases; populations; and terms, concepts, and theories. While the focus is on lower-income countries, the course examines issues in a broader global context, underscoring the interconnections between global health disparities and global health policy response. Applies case studies describing interventions to improve healthcare in resource-poor settings in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere to help illuminate the actors, diseases, populations, and principles and frameworks for the design of effective global health interventions. Cross-listed with PHTH 1270.

Instructor: AK Wright

CRN: 16713

Days, Time: MW 2:50 pm – 4:30 pm

Description:

In this course you will explore a variety of different cultural, intellectual and creative creations that shape the field of Black Feminist Studies. Black Feminist Studies is an interdisciplinary field that includes theory (who you are, what you know and learn, a system of ideas) and praxis (what you do, practice and engagement). You will learn about the history, origins, development, and practice of Black feminisms. Through literary, visual and auditory texts and discussions, you will explore the dimensions and the contours of Black Feminist Thought. In this course, you will understand Black Feminist Studies as an independent field with its own history, theorists, and canon, linked in some ways but significantly separate from traditional feminist studies and not simply as an intervention or remedy to the fields of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Black/Africana/African American Studies. Black feminists investigate how race, class, sexuality, gender, ability, and other markers of difference shape systems of power. Though Black feminism is for and includes everyone, this class centers and highlights the works of Black women, femmes and non-cismen. In the words of the Boston founded Black feminist collective, The Combahee River Collective, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” Cross-listed with WMNS 2325.

Instructor: Natalie Shibley

CRN: 19789

Days, Time: MR 11:45 am – 1:25 pm

Description:

This course will consider how the concepts of race, gender and sexuality have been treated in scientific fields, focusing primarily on the 19th and 20th centuries. We will examine the history of ideas about gender, race, and sexuality as reflected in scientific and medical fields such as biology, psychology, endocrinology, and neuroscience. We will also discuss contraceptive and reproductive technologies, pharmaceutical trials, the gendering of scientific professions, and recent studies that use algorithmic predictions of sex or sexual orientation. This is an advanced seminar and will be based on close reading and discussion. You will also write a research paper on a related topic of your choice. Cross-listed with WMNS and HIST 3305.

Instructor: Richard Wamai

CRN: 15316

Days, Time: MR 11:45 am – 1:25 pm

Description:

Examines the epidemiology and determinants of diseases and the public health practice among continental African peoples and African-derived populations in the Americas and elsewhere in the African Diaspora. Emphasizes such epidemic diseases as malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis, smallpox, the current AIDS pandemic, obesity, and cancer. The course also aims to critically address the breadth of factors behind these pandemics, such as socioeconomic, political, health system, behavioral, and genetic. A cross-cutting theme throughout the course is the entrenched health disparities in society.

Instructor: Régine Jean-Charles

CRN: 19517

Days, Time: MW 2:50 pm – 4:30 pm

Description:

This course uses literature to explore Black feminism as a global phenomenon that is a site for social justice and advocacy. We will examine narratives from a variety of perspectives and geographic locations within the Caribbean (Haiti and Grenada), Sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroun), and North America (United States and Canada). Focusing on topics such as identity, empowerment, and justice, we will consider how different models of gender-based and feminist analysis apply to global Black literatures. Some of the themes we will study include the construction of gender, the representation of the body, family relationships, migration and immigration. All of this content will be considered through an intersectional lens that attends to how race, class, gender, and sexuality overlap and relate. Our class invites students to reflect on the relationships between identity and belonging, between oppression and resistance, between literature and place, and between people across generations and geographies. This is a writing and reading intensive class.

• AFAM 1101 – Introduction to African American and Africana Studies

• AFAM 2296 – Early African American Literature
• AFAM 2337 – African American History Before 1900
• AFRS 3900 – Gender and Black World Literatures

• AFAM 2355 – Race, Identity, Social Change, and Empowerment
• AFAM 4526 – Afro-Asian Relations in the Americas
• AFCS 2330 – Afro-Latin American Studies
• AFRS 1270 – Introduction to Global Health
• AFRS 2325 – Black Feminist Studies
• AFRS 3305 – Beyond the Binary: Race, Sex, and Science
• AFRS 3424 – Epidemiology of Pandemic Diseases & Health Disparities in the African Diaspora

All courses listed.