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Catalogue 2020-2021 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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Africana Studies: I. Introductory |
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AFRS 100 - Introduction to Africana Studies Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
What is Africana Studies? This course proposes an overview of the field of Africana Studies, emphasizing the historical and cultural connections between Africa and its global diasporas. It covers subjects and themes drawing from disciplinary traditions within the humanities and the social sciences. Articulated on distinct geographical spaces and historical time periods, it focuses on the activities of African peoples and their descendants around the world. Topics include: colonialism, slavery, nationalism and transnationalism, civil and human rights, conflict, and culture. The particular subjects and themes explored vary with each faculty teaching the course. Tyrone Simpson.
Prerequisite(s): The course is required for all majors and correlates.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 104 - Religion, Prisons, and the Civil Rights Movement
1 unit(s)
(Same as RELI 104 ) African American citizenship has long been a contested and bloody battlefield. This course uses the modern Civil Rights Movement to examine the roles the religion and prisons have played in theses battles over African American rights and liberties. In what ways have religious beliefs motivated Americans to uphold narrow definitions of citizenship that exclude people on the basis of race or moved them to boldly challenge those definitions? In a similar fashion, civil rights workers were incarcerated in jails and prisons as a result of their nonviolent protest activities. Their experiences in prisons, they exposed the inhumane conditions and practices existing in many prison settings. More recently, the growth of the mass incarceration of minorities has moved to the forefront of civil and human rights concerns. Is a new Civil Rights Movement needed to challenge the New Jim Crow? Jonathon Kahn, Quincy Mills.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 106 - Elementary Arabic Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course is an elementary level course offered during fall semester only. The course builds basic skills in Modern Standard Arabic, the language spoken, read, and understood by educated Arabs throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and other parts of the world. No prior experience in Arabic is necessary. The course focuses on building students’ abilities to (1) communicate successfully basic biographical information: name, place of residence, family members, and daily life activities, using memorized material; (2) understand speech dealing with areas of practical need such as highly standardized messages, phrases, or instructions, such as memorized greetings, pleasantries, leave taking, very basic questions and answers related to immediate need or personal information; (3) derive meaning from short, non-complex texts that convey basic information for which there is contextual or extra-linguistic support; (4) manage successfully a number of uncomplicated communicative tasks in straightforward social situations, such as giving basic personal information, and describing basic objects, a limited number of activities, preferences, and immediate needs. Tagreed Al-Haddad, Mootacem Mhiri.
Students who did not complete AFRS 106 may enroll in AFRS 107 , if they demonstrate equivalent knowledge by a placement test.
Yearlong course 106-AFRS 107 .
Three 50-minute periods, plus one drill period per week.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 107 - Elementary Arabic Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This is an elementary level course offered during spring semester only. The course focuses on building students’ abilities to (1) create statements and formulate questions based on familiar material in short and simple conversational-style sentences with basic word order; (2) understand basic information conveyed orally in simple, minimally connected discourse that contains high-frequency vocabulary; (3) understand fully and with ease short, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and social topics of immediate interest, featuring description and narration; (4) ask simple questions and handle a straightforward survival situation by producing sentence-level language, ranging from discrete sentences to strings of sentences, typically in present time. Tagreed Al-Haddad, Mootacem Mhiri.
Students who did not complete AFRS 106 may enroll in AFRS 107, if they demonstrate equivalent knowledge by a placement test.
Yearlong course AFRS 106 -107.
Three 50-minute periods, plus one drill period per week.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 109 - The Self and the Western Other in Modern Arabic Literature Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Drawing on multidisciplinary social science scholarship, literary works of fiction, poetry, and autobiography, this course explores Middle Eastern and North African articulations of personal, national and cultural identity, from the late nineteenth century until the present. We examine the logic, method, and enduring legacy of imperialism and orientalism in the region through critical discourses about colonial hybridity, border crossing, and the post-colony as a “contact zone” (Pratt). Texts cover different countries, periods, class, gender, intellectual and political positionalities, from across the Arabic-speaking regions in Africa and Asia. Readings are in English translation and may include works by Fatima Mernissi (Morocco); Mouloud Feraoun and Assia Djebar (Algeria); Albert Memmi (Tunisia-France); Ibrahim al-Koni (Lybia); Yahia Haqqi, Tawfik al Hakim, and Leila Ahmed (Egypt); Tayeb Salih and Leila Aboulela (Sudan); Abdul Rahman Munif (Jordan-Saudi Arabia); Khalil Hawi and Hanan Al-Shaykh (Lebanon); and many more! Mootacem Mhiri.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 112 - An Introduction to Islam
1 unit(s)
(Same as RELI 112 ) This course introduces students to Muslim cultures, beliefs, and practices through the lens of journey, migration and quest. Voyage and migration have characterized Muslim communities ever since Muhammad sent a group of his followers to seek refuge with the Christian king of Abyssinia. Over the centuries, Islamic legal, literary, and philosophical traditions have reflected deeply on migration and journeying, and Muslim communities have settled around the world. We explore Muhammad’s miraculous journey to Jerusalem, the event of migration to Medina, the role of travel in the expansion of the Islamic world, Muslims as religious minorities in the 20th century, and the place of Islam in the contemporary global refugee crisis. Sources include scripture, theology, history, poetry and literature, ethnography, autobiography, and film. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 169 - Introduction to African American History Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 169 ) This course introduces students to major themes and debates in African American history, starting with their African origins and leading into the twenty-first century. It explores African American experiences through a variety of primary source materials, including letters, speeches, newspaper articles, posters and autobiographies. Through lecture and class discussion, students interrogate how race, class, gender, sexuality and ability have shaped African American experiences over time. The primary objective is to help students develop a solid understanding of the political, social, economic and personal lives of African Americans from their arrival in the colonies through today. Specific topics covered include African antecedents, colonial and antebellum slavery, the abolitionist movement, African American free people, the Civil War, Emancipation, Jim Crow segregation, the modern freedom struggle, popular culture, and the contemporary experience. Shelby Pumphrey.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 175 - Mandela: Race, Resistance and Renaissance in South Africa Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 175 ) This course critically explores the history and politics of South Africa in the twentieth century through the prism of the life, politics, and experiences of one of its most iconic figures, Nelson Mandela. After almost three decades of incarceration for resisting Apartheid, Mandela became the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa in 1994. It was an inspirational moment in the global movement and the internal struggle to dismantle Apartheid and to transform South Africa into a democratic, non-racial, and just society. Using Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, as our point of departure, the course discusses some of the complex ideas, people, and developments that shaped South Africa and Mandela’s life in the twentieth century, including: indigenous culture, religion, and institutions; colonialism, race, and ethnicity; nationalism, mass resistance, and freedom; and human rights, social justice, and post-conflict reconstruction. Ismail Rashid.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 182 - Reading the Qur’an Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as RELI 182 ) This intensive explores the Qur’an, the central text of sacred revelation in Islam, through the ways that it has been read, recited, and interpreted by Muslims and non-Muslims throughout history. Themes include performance and sound, ethics and politics, environmental ethics, gender and family, technology, and translation and literary theory. The intensive is multi-lingual, and students are encouraged to integrate their competencies in any language/s into the course. Primary readings can be done in multiple languages, including Arabic. Students develop their own practices of reading, interpretation, and analysis as part of the class, which culminates in an independent creative project. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: INT
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AFRS 186 - On Mattering: Voices from the Movement and Beyond Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
The “On Mattering: Voices from the Movement and Beyond” intensive is a speaker series designed as an interactive curricular opportunity to engage students in conversation with a range of emergent and seasoned activist knowledges being produced inside and outside the academy by folks working locally and nationally to shift political discourses of harm, safety, and belonging in response to the rise in public awareness and outcry against police brutality and the killings of unarmed black and brown people in communities across the U.S. and throughout the world.
On Mattering centers a range of local grassroots community organizers, activist poets, healing justice advocates and activist academics whose insight and offerings from New York to Brazil, from Puerto Rico to California whose work to advance black liberation, end racial injustice, and reimagine what democracy looks like is required for enrolled students but also made available to the campus community as a whole as an added resource from Africana Studies and the Prison Studies Correlate for advancing critical conversation about antiblack racism, the prison industrial complex, the criminalization of the poor and the erasure of histories of resistance from the collective consciousness. Jonathon Kahn and Jasmine Sayedullah.
Course Format: INT
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Africana Studies: II. Intermediate |
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AFRS 202 - Black Music Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MUSI 202 ) An analytical exploration of the music of certain African and European cultures and their adaptive influences in North America. The course examines the traditional African and European views of music performance practices while exploring their influences in shaping the music of African Americans from the spiritual to modern times. Justin Patch.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 205 - Arab Women Writers Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 205 ) This course examines a selection of literary works by modern and contemporary Arab women writers in English translation. We will read fiction, poetry, autobiographies, short stories, and critical scholarship by and about Arab women, from North Africa and the Middle East, in order to develop a critical understanding of the social, political, and cultural context(s) of these writings, and to form an enlightened opinion about the issues and concerns raised by Arab women writers throughout the Twentieth Century, at different historical junctures, and in different locations. Our class discussions will focus—among other themes—on: (1) Arab women writers and feminism. (2) Arab Women and Islamism. (3) Arab women and the West. (4) Arab Nationalism(s), Arab Modernity(s), and Arab women. (5) Arab Women writing in the Diaspora: hyphenated identities and different routes of homecoming. The authors to be read include Assia Djebar (Algeria); Fatima Mernissi (Morocco); Nawal Sadaawi (Egypt); Hanan Al-Shaykh (Lebanon); and Sahar Khalifeh (Palestine); and many others. Mootacem Mhiri.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 207 - Intermediate Arabic Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This is an intermediate level course offered during fall semester only. The course focuses on enhancing students’ abilities to (1) create with the language and communicate personal meaning effectively; (2) satisfy personal needs and social demands to survive in an Arabic speaking environment; (3) understand information conveyed in simple, sentence-length speech on familiar or everyday topics. (4) understand short, non-complex texts that convey basic information and deal with personal and social topics. (5) build intercultural competence through exposure to authentic Arabic expressions, proverbs, and similar linguistic and cultural idioms. Mootacem Mhiri.
This course is designed for students who have completed AFRS 107 or its equivalent successfully as demonstrated by a placement test.
Three 50-minute periods, plus one drill period per week.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 208 - Intermediate Arabic Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This is an intermediate level course offered during spring semester only. The course focuses on enhancing students’ abilities to (1) write short, simple communications, compositions, and requests for information in loosely connected texts about personal preferences, daily routines, common events, and other personal topics; (2) understand simple, sentence-length speech in a variety of basic personal and social contexts and accurately comprehend highly familiar and predictable topics; (3) understand short, non-complex texts, featuring description and narration, that convey basic information and deal with basic and familiar topics; (4) handle successfully a variety of uncomplicated communicative tasks in straightforward social situations such as exchanges related to self, family, home, daily activities, interests and personal preferences, as well as physical and social needs, such as food, shopping, travel, and lodging; (5) develop their intercultural competence through increased exposure to authentic Arabic literary and journalistic audiovisual material. Tagreed Al-Haddad.
Students who did not complete AFRS 207 may enroll if they demonstrate equivalent knowledge by a placement test.
Three 50-minute periods, plus one drill period per week.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 211 - Islam in Europe and the Americas
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 211 and RELI 211 ) Various processes of migration and conversion have contributed to the development of Muslim minority communities in Europe and the Americas, dating back to the 17th century. From enslaved Muslims in the Americas, to the Nation of Islam, to colonial and post-colonial migrations, to the debates over whether and how to define “European,” “American,” and “Latin@” Islams, this course covers the history of these religious communities and movements, their relationships with European and American states, and how contemporary European and American Muslims have described and theorized the experience of being a religious minority or diaspora. Key themes include race & ethnicity, gender & sexuality, transnational media, political resistance, ethics, and spirituality. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 212 - Arabic Literature and Culture
1 unit(s)
This reading, writing and conversation course is designed to familiarize students with various genres of classical and modern Arabic prose and poetry from the pre-Islamic period to the present. We read, discuss, and write about themes and topics which have been central to the cultural discourses in various periods of the region’s history. These topics include: religious diversity, Muslim and Arab scientists and their contribution to world culture, the arts and musical genres, among many others. Students taking this course form a more in-depth understanding of the texts examined and their significant contribution to the formation of an Arabic cultural ethos and an Arab system of values. The course also enhances students’ oral and writing skills through weekly presentations on the readings and writing assignments. Tagreed Haddad.
The course is open to any student who has taken AFRS 207 or AFRS 208 .
Three 50-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 219 - Queer of Color Critique Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 219 and ENGL 219 ) “Queer of Color Critique” is a form of cultural criticism modeled on lessons learned from woman of color feminism, poststructuralism, and materialist and other forms of analysis. As Roderick Ferguson defines it, “Queer of color analysis…interrogates social formations as the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class with particular interest in how those formations correspond with and diverge from nationalist ideals and practices.” This course considers what interventions the construction “queer of color” makes possible for queertheory, LGBT scholarship and activism, and different models of ethnic studies.We assess the value and limitations of queer theory’s “subjectless critique” (in other words, its rejection of identity as a “fixed referent”) in doing cultural and political work. What kind of complications (or contradictions) does the notion “queer of color” present for subjectless critique? How might queer of color critique inform political organizing? Particular attention will be devoted to how “queer” travels. Toward this end, students determine what conflicts are presently shaping debates around sexuality in their own communities and consider how these debates may be linked to different regional, national or transnational politics. Throughout the semester, we evaluate what “queer” means and what kind of work it enables. Is it an identity or an anti-identity? A verb, a noun, or an adjective? A heuristic device, a counterpublic, a form of political mobilization or perhaps even a kind of literacy? Hiram Perez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 220 - Policing the Planet Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Can we imagine safety without the police? This course reflects upon the political and social implications of our reliance on policing, surveillance, and criminalization to keep the peace and promote public safety in U.S. culture. By placing policing philosophies such as broken windows theory, the war on poverty, and the war on drugs, in conversation with intersectional accounts of the casualties of state-sanctioned violence, vigilante culture, and homeland security, this course challenges students to put domestic policing practices in global perspective. In addition to drawing on science fiction, social science, film, and national histories of policing whose geographic landscapes shift in accordance with pressing political concerns of the day, students also study the emergent critical prison studies literature to better contextualize how common sense notions of care, privacy, and the common good become exclusionary constructs that shape imaginations of what keeps us safe, especially in the places we call home. Jasmine Syedullah.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 221 - Captive Genders and Methods of Survival Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 221 ) From Celia the Slave (1855) to CeCe McDonald (2011) cis, queer, and trans women (particularly of color) have been deemed unruly, deviant, and criminalized for defending themselves against gendered violence. With no selves to defend in the face of the law, how do these subjects seek justice when their survival is routinely “rewarded” with both legal and extralegal forms of punishment? While critiques of the criminal justice system often center the mechanisms of the system itself, this course is concerned with the testaments of survivors, their protocols of survival, namely the feminist, trans, and queer-of-color ethics, activisms, and intellectual histories that resist gender violence, criminalization, and punishment. This course centers histories, testimony, poetry, art, music, and social theory including activists accounts from Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Angela Davis, Sylvia Rivera, Dean Spade, Miss Major, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and others. Jasmine Syedullah.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 227 - The Harlem Renaissance and its Precursors
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 227 ) This course places the Harlem Renaissance in literary historical perspective as it seeks to answer the following questions: In what ways was “The New Negro” new? How did African American writers of the Harlem Renaissance rework earlier literary forms from the sorrow songs to the sermon and the slave narrative? How do the debates that raged during this period over the contours of a black aesthetic trace their origins to the concerns that attended the entry of African Americans into the literary public sphere in the eighteenth century?
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 228 - African American Literature Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 228 ) Topic for 2020/21b: Black Modernism: On Ghosts, Mystics, And Prophets. Can writing be black? Is that a good or bad thing? What makes it so? Can it be both black and modern? Is blackness something artists need to leave behind en route to their arrival as modernists? Or instead, does blackness necessitate that artists be modern in a way different from other (non-black) artists? Beginning with the modernist innovations of African American writers after the Harlem Renaissance, this course ranges from the social protest fiction of the 1940s through the Black Arts Movement to the postmodernist experiments of contemporary African American writers. In giving our attention to the aforementioned questions, we cover the debates that have informed African American literary production, particularly the tension that has historically existed between the aesthetic and the political imperatives that inform the art. Be aware that being distinguished as “modern” is not the only temporal marker that these writers and their fictions share. Our readings this term also invoke the idea of the past (signaled by the presence of ghosts and mystics) as well as that of the future (signaled by the presence of mystics and prophets). We explore through these writers why time travel—both backward and forward—is a prominent narrative feature in black fiction. Tyrone Simpson.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 229 - Black Intellectual History
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 229 ) This course provides an overview of black intellectual thought and an introduction to critical race theory. It offers approaches to the ways in which black thinkers from a variety of nations and periods from the nineteenth century up to black modernity engage their intellectual traditions. How have their perceptions been shaped by a variety of places? How have their traditions, histories and cultures theorized race? Critics may include Aimé Césaire, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. DuBois, Frantz Fanon, Paul Gilroy, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ida B. Wells, and Patricia Williams. Diane Harriford.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 231 - Algeria/France:Race, Religion & Citizenship
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 231 ) Since the early modern era, slavery, colonialism, commerce, piracy, and migration have woven the Mediterranean together in both peace and in horrifying violence. This broad, multipolar web of conflict and communication has served as the context in which multiple French and Algerian identities have careened into modernity. Constant references to local and cross-Mediterranean “others” have shaped the very meanings of such key terms as “emancipation,” “republic,” “Islam,” “progress,” and “civilization.” Even today, debates on issues ranging from women’s clothing to secularism to immigration to anti-Semitism echo with this long and contested history. Joshua Schreier.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 232 - African American Cinema
1 unit(s)
(Same as FILM 232 ) This course provides a survey of the history and theory of African American representation in cinema. It begins with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux and examines early Black cast westerns (Harlem Rides the Range, The Bronze Buckaroo, Harlem on the Prairie) and musicals (St. Louis Blues, Black and Tan, Hi De Ho, Sweethearts of Rhythm). Political debate circulating around cross over stars (Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Eartha Kitt, and Harry Belafonte) are central to the course. Special consideration is given to Blaxploitation cinema of the seventies (Shaft, Coffy, Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones) in an attempt to understand its impact on filmmakers and the historical contexts for contemporary filmmaking. The course covers “Los Angeles Rebellion” filmmakers such as Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, and Haile Gerima. Realist cinema of the 80’s and 90’s (Do the Right Thing, Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society, and Set it off),is examined before the transition to Black romantic comedies, family films, and genre pictures (Coming to America, Love and Basketball, Akeelah and the Bee, The Great Debaters). Mia Mask.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 209 and permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 234 - Race, Space and Nature Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 234 and GEOG 234 ) Ideas about “race” and “nature” are intimately bound up with the production of space. Historically, essentialist theories about racial difference served to legitimize and naturalize oppression, dispossession, and enslavement. Racism and white privilege have also long been present in how non-human natures are understood and managed in rural and urban environments, and have contributed to the uneven socio-spatial distribution of environmental harms. This course draws on political ecology, environmental justice, and theories of racial capitalism to apprehend and deconstruct the historical and contemporary relationships between race, space, and nature. Potential topics may include: connections between race, property, and land; the plantation as a socio-ecological phenomenon; environmental racism; Eurocentric ideologies of nature; and racialized exclusion and eviction in the creation of National Parks in North America and Africa. Ashley Fent.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 240 - Cultural Localities Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as (Same as ANTH 240) Detailed study of the cultures of people living in a particular area of the world, including their politics, economy, worldview, religion, expressive practices, and historical transformations. Included is a critical assessment of different approaches to the study of culture. Areas covered vary from year to year and may include Europe, Africa, North America, India and the Pacific.May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed. Louis Romer.
Topic for 2020/21b: Atlantic Worlds. (Same as AFRS 240 ) To speak of the Atlantic World is to speak of the peoples who inhabit the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and its marginal seas, and who are interconnected by histories of imperial expansion, enslavement, commerce, and migration. Imperial conquest led to the displacement and decimation of indigenous peoples, while slavery, indenture, and trade led and the creation of African, European, and Asian Diasporas in the Americas. These processes gave rise to the very idea of globalization, as well as the ideals of freedom, decolonization, and universal rights. This course introduces the diasporas, networks, and economic flows that integrate the Caribbean, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Using ethnographies, histories, narratives, music, and film, we explore the processes of migration, imperial expansion, and economic integration that continue to shape the peoples, languages, and cultures of the Atlantic World. We also critically examine the strengths and limitations of concepts and theoretical frameworks used to produce knowledge about the peoples and histories of the Atlantic world. Topics include imperialism and its legacies, (de)colonization, capitalism, slavery, indenture, marronage, piracy, revolution, abolition, creolization, race, class, and gender. Louis Römer.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 242 - Brazil in Crisis: Continuity and Change in Portuguese America Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 242 , INTL 242 and LALS 242 ) Brazil, a giant of Latin America and the Global South, has long been known as the “land of the future.” Yet frustrating political-economic crises have repeatedly followed periods of rapid growth and social progress. Taking current crises as a point of departure, this course examines Brazil’s contemporary evolution in light of the country’s historical geography, the distinctive cultural and environmental features of Portuguese America, and the political-economic linkages with the world system. Specific topics for study include: the legacies of colonial Brazil; race relations, Afro-Brazilian culture, and ethnic identities; issues of gender, youth, violence, and poverty; processes of urban-industrial growth; regionalism and national integration; environmental devastation and sustainability; controversies surrounding the occupation of Amazonia; and long-run prospects for democracy and equitable development in Brazil. Brian Godfrey.
Two 75-minute periods.
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AFRS 245 - Making Waves: Topics in Feminist Activism Semester Offered: Spring
1 1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 245 and WMST 245 ) Topic for 2020/21b: Queer and Trans of Color Interventions .This course examines queer and transgender of color art, theory, and activism, in order to understand the intersections between different modes of “making waves” in our current moment. We explore not only the specific contexts of works and their authors, but also the social, political, and economic changes manifest. The course asks students to develop their own trans of color critique, and asks what benefits such a critique holds for persons of a variety of identifications and texts that might seem outside a “trans” purview. We interweave written texts with audio, visual, and performative theory, in order to explore the many forms of trans of color critique across the world that do not exist in written form. Students are encouraged to make connections between queer and trans of color activism(s) today and other historical and present social justice movements within and outside the U.S. Creative and critical written assignments provide opportunities to develop self-reflexivity, hone analytical skills, and make connections between our everyday lives and larger social, political, and economic systems. The course harnesses performance as a mode of “doing” theory, not only in the objects we study but also as an analytic for understanding complex social texts and their contexts. Ultimately, the course invites students to think about how queer and transgender of color theory is imbricated with social justice and artistic formations in our contemporary world. Elias Krell.
Prerequisite(s): WMST 130 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 247 - The Politics of Difference Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 247 ) This course relates to the meanings of various group experiences in American politics. It explicitly explores, for example, issues of race, class, gender, disability, and sexual orientation. Among other things, this course addresses the contributions of the Critical Legal Studies Movement, the Feminist Jurisprudence Movement, the Critical Race Movement, and Queer Studies to the legal academy. Luke Harris.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 250 - Across Religious Boundaries: Understanding Differences Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as RELI 250 ) Topic for 2020/21a: African American Religions and the Practice of Social Criticism. This class introduces students to the study of African American religions. Our focus is not only the historical variety of religious practices, but equally on the way the study of African American religious practices, serve to influence, wrestle with, protest, and critique constructions of race and racial identities. By considering topics such as the religious culture of the enslaved in the antebellum South, the development of independent black churches in the late 18th and 19th centuries, expressive culture in music, sermon, and song, and the intersections of religion and black political movements, we explore the ways the category of religion functions as a contested site to think through notions of black liberation, agency, and struggle. Jonathon Kahn.
Two 75-minute periods.
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AFRS 251 - Topics in Black Literatures
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 251 ) This course considers Black literatures in all their richness and diversity. The focus changes from year to year, and may include study of a historical period, literary movement, or genre. The course may take a comparative, diasporic approach or may examine a single national or regional literature.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 255 - Race, Representation, and Resistance in U.S. Schools Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 255 and URBS 255 ) This course interrogates the intersections of race, racism and schooling in the US context. In this course, we examine this intersection at the site of educational policy, media and public attitudes towards schools and schooling- critically examining how representations in each shape the experiences of youth in school. Expectations, beliefs, attitudes and opportunities reflect societal investments in these representations, thus becoming both reflections and driving forces of these identities. Central to these representations is how theorists, educators and youth take them on, own them and resist them in ways that constrain possibility or create spaces for hope. Ah-Young Song.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 256 - Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 256 and POLI 256 ) Conflicts over racial, ethnic and/or national identity continue to dominate headlines in diverse corners of the world. Whether referring to ethnic violence in Bosnia or Sri Lanka, racialized political tensions in Sudan and Fiji, the treatment of Roma (Gypsies) and Muslims in Europe, or the charged debates about immigration policy in the United States, cultural identities remain at the center of politics globally. Drawing upon multiple theoretical approaches, this course explores the related concepts of race, ethnicity and nationalism from a comparative perspective using case studies drawn from around the world and across different time periods. Zachariah Mampilly.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 257 - Genre and the Postcolonial City
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 257 and URBS 257 ) This course explores the physical and imaginative dimensions of selected postcolonial cities. The theoretical texts, genres of expression and cultural contexts that the course engages address the dynamics of urban governance as well as aesthetic strategies and everyday practices that continue to reframe existing senses of reality in the postcolonial city. Through an engagement with literary, cinematic, architectural among other forms of urban mediation and production, the course examines the politics of migrancy, colonialism, gender, class and race as they come to bear on political identities, urban rhythms and the built environment. Case studies include: Johannesburg , Nairobi, Algiers and migrant enclaves in London and Paris. Samson Opondo.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 259 - Settler Colonialism in a Comparative Perspective
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 259 ) This course examines the phenomenon of settler colonialism through a comparative study of the interactions between settler and ‘native’ / indigenous populations in different societies. It explores the patterns of settler migration and settlement and the dynamics of violence and local displacement in the colony through the tropes of racialization of space, colonial law, production/labor, racialized knowledge, aesthetics, health, gender, domesticity and sexuality. Attentive to historical injustices and the transformation of violence in ‘postcolonial’ and settler societies, the course interrogates the forms of belonging, memory, desire and nostalgia that arise from the unresolved status of settler and indigenous communities and the competing claims to, or unequal access to resources like land. Case studies are drawn primarily from Africa but also include examples from other regions. Samson Opondo.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 260 - International Relations of the Third World: Bandung to 9/11
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 260 and POLI 260 ) Whether referred to as the “Third World,” or other variants such as the “Global South,” the “Developing World,” the “G-77,” the “Non-Aligned Movement,” or the “Post-Colonial World,” a certain unity has long been assumed for the multitude of countries ranging from Central and South America, across Africa to much of Asia. Is it valid to speak of a Third World? What were/are the connections between countries of the Third World? What were/are the high and low points of Third World solidarity? And what is the relationship between the First and Third Worlds? Drawing on academic and journalistic writings, personal narratives, music, and film, this course explores the concept of the Third World from economic, political and cultural perspectives. Beginning at the dawn of the 20th century with the rise of anti-colonial movements, we examine the trajectory of the Third World in global political debates through the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror. Zachariah Mampilly.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 266 - Art, Urgency, and Everyday Life in the United States Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 266 and ART 266 ) An interdisciplinary exploration of how a range of U.S. based creators–through their artistic practices, aesthetic choices, and expressive interventions–are grappling with urgent issues of our time. Lisa Collins.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or coursework in Africana Studies, American Studies, Women’s Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
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AFRS 269 - Gender and African American History Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 269 and WMST 269 ) Using primary documents and secondary sources, this course explores African American history through the lens of gender, sexuality, and family. Themes might include the transition from slavery to freedom; women’s labor (paid and unpaid) in the workforce, family, and community; and African American women’s struggles for equality. Among the topics to be considered are Black Freedom movements and feminist / womanist movements since Emancipation, giving special attention to intersectionalities of race and gender, and to histories of African American LBGTQ+ experiences.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 271 - Theorizing Global Blackness and Indigeneity Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 271 ) Recent years have seen simultaneous explosions of political struggle against both anti-Black racism (from Ferguson 2014 to Minneapolis 2020) and the colonial dispossession of Indigenous communities (from Canada’s Idle No More in 2012 to #NoDAPL in 2016). But many organizers and theorists alike continue to draw hard lines between the historical experiences of settler colonialism and chattel slavery, and consequently between Black and Indigenous struggles in the present. This course in comparative political theory expands our framework for approaching these questions in two ways: historically, by locating Blackness and Indigeneity in their broader context and shared genesis; and geographically, by considering these as intertwining and overlapping global phenomena. By engaging theorists and practitioners from across the Global South, we think through questions including Afro-Indigenous histories (from the Seminoles to Latin America), African Indigeneity, the settler colonialism and indigeneity Palestine, and what it would mean to reconfigure new, future identities in the course of shared struggles. George Ciccariello-Maher.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 272 - Modern African History Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 272 ) Africa has experienced profound transformations over the past two centuries. Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Africans lost and regained their independence from different European colonial powers. This course explores the changing African experiences before, during, and after European colonization of their continent. Drawing on primary sources, film, memoirs, and popular novels, we look at the creative responses of African groups and individuals to the contradictory processes and legacies of colonialism. Particular attention will be paid to understanding how these responses shape the trajectories of African as well as global developments. Amongst the major themes covered by the course are: colonial ideologies, African resistance, colonial economies, gender and cultural change, African participation in the two world wars, urbanization, decolonization and African nationalism. We also reflect on some of the contemporary developmental dilemmas as well as opportunities confronting post-colonial Africa. Ismail Rashid.
Two 75-minute periods.
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AFRS 276 - How to Write a Black Memoir Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 276 and ENGL 276 ) This intensive is an exercise in critical reading and creative writing. I would like students to read the work of a particular memoirist and develop their own analyses of what the writer has accomplished and achieved. I would then like to invite the writer for video presentation wherein the writer teaches a “skill” or technique that begets good life writing. Students perform that technique in class and revise/refine what they have written and submit the piece in the class to follow. The goals are for the student to write one critical essay analyzing of the memoirs we have read for class and write an autobiographical narrative of at least 25 pages in length. Tyrone Simpson.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor and 200-level classes in English/ Africana Studies/American Studies.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: INT
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AFRS 277 - Global Literatures in English
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 277 ) This course explores themes, concepts, and genres that span literary periods and/or national boundaries. The focus varies from year to year. Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 279 - Spaces of Exception
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 279 and PHIL 279 ) This course charts and critically examines a series of exceptional spaces in which inclusion in the political community is possible only by mechanisms of exclusion and intensified precarity that place vulnerable subjects at the outskirts of political legibility. We map the mechanisms of identification, exclusion, dispossession, penalization, and abandonment through a number of theoretical sources as well as the history of sovereign claims, territoriality, resistance, community, and transformations in bio and necropolitics.
Practices of capture as well as regimes of death and penalization are analyzed in their entanglements with the history of the Colony, citizenship, manhunting, jurisprudence, and the humanitarian logic of care. We engage these thematics through literary and cinematic texts in conversation with theorists such as Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Etienne Balibar, Grégoire Chamayou, Achille Mbembe, Angela Davis, Jacques Derrida, Franz Fanon, Paul Gilroy, and Suvendrini Perera among others.
By confronting the psychological, physical, moral, and political ways in which violence inscribes itself on the body, both individual and collective, this course discloses the pivotal role played by the biologization of subjectivity, achieved through biometrics, therapeutics, the power of extra-territorial formations, immunization, and technologies of capture, enclosure, penalization, and encampment. Ultimately, our immanent critique of spaces of exception brings us to examine the ethical dimensions of practices that draw new maps, create new archives, and foster everyday enactments of hospitality, life, and co-habitation. Giovanna Borradori and Samson Opondo.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 285 - Art, Spirituality and Power in Precolonial African History Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 285 ) Spirituality, power and art were inextricably linked in many African societies or civilizations before the nineteenth century. This intensive course explores political and social dynamics in selected precolonial African societies through some of their prominent artistic objects and monuments on public display, especially in museums at Vassar, Brooklyn and New York City. Amongst the African societies whose artifacts are usually on display are: Egypt, Kush, Nubia, Axum, Edo, Kongo, Yoruba, Great Zimbabwe, Swahili States and Kongo. Each student selects, researches and completes a project on artifact(s) emblematic of one their selected society or civilization’s representation of power and spirituality. The final product of the project can be in a variety of written and creative formats. Ismail Rashid.
Course Format: INT
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AFRS 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual or group field projects or internships. The department.
Unscheduled. May be selected during the academic year or during the summer.
Course Format: INT
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AFRS 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual or group project of reading or research. The department.
Unscheduled. May be selected during the academic year or during the summer.
Course Format: OTH
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AFRS 299 - Research Methods Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
An introduction to the research methods used in the disciplines represented by Africana Studies. Through a variety of individual projects, students learn the approaches necessary to design projects, collect data, analyze results, and write research reports. The course includes some field trips to sites relevant to student projects. The emphasis is on technology and archival research, using the Library’s new facilities in these areas. The course explores different ideas, theories and interdisciplinary approaches within Africana Studies that shape research and interpretation of the African and African diasporic experience. Students learn to engage and critically utilize these ideas, theories and approaches in a coherent fashion in their own research projects. They also learn how to design research projects, collect and analyze different types of data, and write major research papers. Emphasis is placed on collection of data through interviews and surveys as well as archival and new information technologies, using the facilities of Vassar libraries.
The course includes some field trips to sites relevant to student projects. Required of majors and correlates, but open to students in all disciplines.
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Africana Studies: III. Advanced |
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AFRS 300 - Senior Thesis or Project Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
Course Format: INT
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AFRS 307 - Upper-Intermediate Arabic Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Upper-intermediate language and culture course in Modern Standard Arabic. Designed to consolidate students’ reading and listening comprehension, and their oral skills at the intermediate-mid level of proficiency; and to help them reach intermediated- high level proficiency by the end of the course. Tagreed Al-Haddad.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 308 - Upper-Intermediate Arabic
1 unit(s)
Upper-intermediate language and culture course in Modern Standard Arabic. Designed to consolidate students’ reading and listening comprehension, and their oral skills at the intermediate-mid level of proficiency; and to help them reach intermediated- high level proficiency by the end of the course. Tagreed Al-Haddad.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 311 - Advanced Arabic Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This is an advanced level course. The course focuses on enhancing students’ abilities to (1) Read and understand various types of discourses, such as newspaper articles (descriptive, narrative, argumentative, etc.), essays and short stories on various topics; (2) Listen to and understand the main ideas of a speech, lecture or news broadcast; (3) Present personal opinion and construct a nuanced argument about a range of topics about literature, history, politics, culture and society in various parts of the Arab World; (4) Write cohesive and articulate summaries and critical reports about the same topics. Students will continue to develop their communicative skills (speaking, listening, writing and reading) in Modern Standard Arabic through different types of course assignments aimed at helping them reach advanced levels of proficiency. Tagreed Al-Haddad.
This course is designed for students who have successfully completed two courses in upper intermediate Arabic or its equivalent as demonstrated by a placement test.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 319 - Race and its Metaphors Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 319 ) Re-examinations of canonical literature in order to discover how race is either explicitly addressed by or implicitly enabling to the texts. Does racial difference, whether or not overtly expressed, prove a useful literary tool? The focus of the course varies from year to year.
Topic for 2020/21b: “Blacks and Blues: Blues as Metaphor in African American Literature.” Ralph Ellison wrote of the blues that it is “an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism.” This course takes the blues as a metaphor and follows it through canonical African American writing to consider multiple themes: black sonics, black vernacular traditions, sexuality and freedom, social critique, joy, pain, and futurities of blackness. Students interested in this course need not have a musical background, but interest in the links between sound and black literature is expected. Eve Dunbar.
One 2-hour period.
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AFRS 320 - Abolitionist Theory Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Some of the most radical demands for freedom emerge from the most confining spaces of containment. This seminar immerses students in the thought, witness, and writings of outlaws, captives, and exiles – to ask how prophetic figures learn to tell the time of freedom against conventional narratives of modern progress. Readings include selections from David Walker and Nat Turner’s antebellum abolitionism, Assata Shakur and Grace Lee Boggs’s contributions to Cold War era liberation movements, and reflections from the leaderful movements for Black Lives. Students learn to analyze the transformative power of testimony and identify protocols of fugitive acts through the living archive of the abolitionist tradition to closely consider the implications of its speculative ideas of freedom not yet realized. Jasmine Syedullah.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 322 - The Afro-Indo-Anglo Caribbean: Education, Feminism, Indigeneity and Migration
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 322 and WMST 322 ) The Caribbean is a diverse and complex place. This course specifically focuses on the Afro-Anglo Caribbean with few exceptions such as Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The focus on these mostly Afro and Indo Caribbean spaces is important for procuring knowledge that has existed and continue to emerge from this region but that have been marginal in the U.S. academy. Although we cover the Caribbean broadly, the course focuses on a variety of approaches taken by scholars, activists and the government to understand this complex terrain. We read novels, feminist texts, historical documents, sociological studies and other scholarly and popular work to gain a better understanding of this vast and diverse territory. Popular works include poetry, dancehall music, calypso music, short stories and plays. This class provides you with a dynamic introduction to the Afro-Anglo Caribbean region. Kimberly Williams Brown.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 326 - Challenging Ethnicity
1 unit(s)
An exploration of literary and artistic engagements with ethnicity. Contents and approaches vary from year to year.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 346 - Race and Gender in Judicial Politics Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 346 ) This seminar explores the centrality of race/ethnicity and gender in the American judicial process and system. The course is designed to promote and facilitate healthy discussions and debates about the level, nature, and importance of judicial diversity in the American justice system. After examining the diversity levels on the state and federal bench and how those levels have changed over the last century, students consider factors that improve and/or limit judicial diversity such as the selection process and evaluations of judicial performance. Afterwards, students explore the value of judicial diversity. Special attention is given to judicial decision-making behavior, and the extent to which the courts protect minority rights and provide redress for historical injustices. The course concludes with students considering the issues presently facing our legal system such as mass incarceration, the proliferation of for-profit prisons, racial and gender bias in the criminal justice system, and demands for criminal justice reform. Taneisha Means.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 351 - Africana Studies Seminar Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 351 ) This seminar explores both historical and contemporary debates within the field of Africana Studies. Students examine a variety of subjects and themes encompassing different disciplinary and interdisciplinary works drawn from the humanities and social sciences. The critical perspectives that the seminar engages draw attention to the political, representational and explanatory value of a variety of genres of expression and knowledge practices. By delving into philosophical, historical, aesthetic and political analyses of Africa and African Diaspora societies, subjects and practices, students acquire a deep understanding of Africana research methods culminating in a substantive research project. The particular subject and themes explored vary with the faculty teaching the course. Jasmine Syedullah.
Prerequisite(s): AFRS 100 or permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 352 - Redemption and Diplomatic Imagination in Postcolonial Africa Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 352 ) This seminar explores the shifts and transformations in the discourse and practice of redemptive diplomacy in Africa. It introduces students to the cultural, philosophical and political dimensions of estrangement and the mediation practices that accompany the quest for recognition, meaning and material well-being in selected colonial and postcolonial societies. Through a critical treatment of the redemptive vision and diplomatic imaginaries summoned by missionaries, anti-colonial resistance movements and colonial era Pan-Africanists, the seminar interrogates the ‘idea of Africa’ produced by these discourses of redemption and their implications for diplomatic thought in Africa. The insights derived from the interrogation of foundational discourses on African redemption will be used to map the transformation of identities, institutional forms, and the minute texture of everyday life in postcolonial Africa. The seminar also engages modern humanitarianism, diasporic religious movements, Non-Governmental Organizations and neoliberal or millennial capitalist networks that seek to save Africans from foreign forces of oppression or ‘themselves.’ Samson Opondo.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
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AFRS 364 - Race, Class & Gender in the United States Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 364 and WMST 364 ) This course examines how African Americans have navigated the intersectionality of race, class, and gender at several moments in American history. Topics might include the slave experience, abolitionism, black mobilization in the union movement, or the quest for civil and social justice. To deepen their understanding of one of these topics, students write research papers, using primary documents and secondary sources.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 366 - Art and Activism in the United States
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 366 , ART 366 , and WMST 366 ) Exquisite Intimacy. An interdisciplinary exploration of the work and role of quilts within the US. Closely considering quilts–as well as their creators, users, keepers, and interpreters–we study these integral coverings and the practices of their making and use with keen attention to their recurrence as core symbols in American history, literature, and life. Lisa Collins.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AFRS 374 - The African Diaspora Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 374 ) This seminar investigates the social origins, philosophical and cultural ideas, and the political forms of Pan-Africanism from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It explores how disaffection and resistance against slavery, racism and colonial domination in the Americas, Caribbean, Europe, and Africa led to the development of a global movement for the emancipation of peoples of African descent from 1900 onwards. The seminar examines the different ideological, cultural, and organizational manifestations of Pan-Africanism as well as the scholarly debates on development of the movement. Readings include the ideas and works of Edward Blyden, Alexander Crummell, W. E. B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Amy Garvey, C.L.R. James, and Kwame Nkmmah. Ismail Rashid.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 379 - Reading Black Reconstruction Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 379 ) W.E.B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction can be understood as a sort of Rosetta Stone of US history. By taking enslaved people seriously as political subjects, Du Bois permits us to understand how it was slaves themselves who determined both the meaning and the outcome of the Civil War, but who also sought to build an ambitious vision of “abolition-democracy” from the ashes of the slave order. All history is not past, however, and Black Reconstruction has become an increasingly necessary foundation for grappling with the persistent tangle of race and class in the US today. This seminar works through the essential contours of Du Bois’ mammoth text—the stretching of Marxist categories like class and general strike, the autonomous transformative capacity of slaves in struggle, and the ultimate betrayal of Reconstruction. But we also emphasize underdiscussed elements of the text, Du Bois’ analysis of a burgeoning imperialism and his own blind spots to gender and indigenous struggles. This seminar takes place in conjunction with a symposium of the same name, featuring the participation of some of the most important intellectual voices of our time, and an edited volume to be published by Duke University Press. George Ciccariello-Maher.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 380 - English Seminar Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 380 and ENGL 380 ) Topic for 2020/21a: Then Whose Negro Are You?: On the Art and Politics of James Baldwin. When interviewers sought out some sense of James Baldwin’s ambition, the artist often responded, “I want to be an honest man and a good writer.” The forces constellated around Baldwin’s career made this hardly a simple declaration. The issue of becoming a writer was an arduous task in itself, so much so that Baldwin felt he had to leave the United States, particularly his adored Harlem, to do so. Getting in the way of his artistry was the nation’s troubled negotiation with its own soul: the US was trying to figure out what it wanted to be—an apartheid state? A nuclear dreadnought? A den of prudish homophobes? An imperial power? A beloved community? A city on the Hill? This course looks at all things Baldwin, or at least as many things as we can over a four-month period. It certainly indulges his greatest hits-his essays, Notes of A Native Son; his novel, Giovanni’s Room; his play, Blues for Mr. Charlie’s–and several other writings both published and unpublished. It does so with an eye toward understanding Baldwin’s circulation as a celebrated author and a public intellectual both in the mid-twentieth century and the present day. Tyrone Simpson.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 381 - Race and Popular Culture
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 381 and SOCI 381 ) This seminar explores the way in which the categories of race, ethnicity, and nation are mutually constitutive with an emphasis on understanding how different social institutions and practices produce meanings about race and racial identities. Through an examination of knowledge production as well as symbolic and expressive practices, we focus on the ways in which contemporary scholars connect cultural texts to social and historical institutions. Appreciating the relationship between cultural texts and institutional frameworks, we unravel the complex ways in which the cultural practices of different social groups reinforce or challenge social relationships and structures. Finally, this seminar considers how contemporary manifestations of globalization impact and transform the linkages between race and culture as institutional and intellectual constructs. Carlos Alamo.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 383 - Creolizing the World: Language, Empire, Globalization Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 383 ) This current era of mass migration, multilingualism, globalized economies, and hybrid identities began with European imperial expansion into the Americas five centuries ago. This seminar on creole studies—an interdisciplinary field consisting of anthropologists, linguists, historians, philosophers, and literary scholars who study creoles—examines how the formation of creole language structures, creole speech communities, and creole identities are part of broader histories of imperialism, slavery, and global trade. While creole languages and their speakers are often devalued, they nevertheless have important perspectives on global interconnection and the practices of transnational solidarity required to confront the socio-economic, ecological, and geopolitical challenges that present themselves on a planetary scale. This course examines the profound challenges that creole studies pose to essentialist approaches to language, human diversity, race, and identity. The course centers the speakers of creole languages, their worldviews, historical narratives, and cultural expressions to gain insight into how they make sense of global interconnection, challenge racial and colonial ideologies, and practice forms of solidarity across difference. While focusing mainly on Atlantic creoles spoken by Afro-diasporic communities in the Americas and Africa, the course includes readings discussing creoles in the Indian and Pacific Ocean areas as well. Louis Römer.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AFRS 395 - Thinking Africa: Conversations on the Thought of Achille Mbembe Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as FFS 395 and POLI 395 ) The Intensive examines a select number of texts by Achille Mbembe, the Cameroonian postcolonial theorist and author of De La Postcolonie: Essai sur l’Imagination Politique dans L’Afrique Contemporaine (2000) [On The Postcolony (2001)], “Necropolitics” (2003), Sortir de la Grande Nuit (2010), Critique de la Raison Nègre (2013) [Critique of Black Reason (2016)]. Charting Mbembe’s intellectual history, the major debates and concepts he engages, and their implication for thinking with and about Africa, we discuss the complexity of an African thinker reflecting on the condition of a continent (and humanity at large).
A goal of this Intensive is to develop a greater critical fluency on what it means to think, read and write the world from Africa. With insights from Mbembe’s corpus and the work of his interlocutors, the Intensive explores the stakes of Mbembe’s thought and relates them to other lines of inquiry, reflection, and creativity. Working individually and collaboratively, the students undertake a large writing, translation, or creative project which engages an element of Mbembe’s work and relates it to an area of their intellectual interest.
This intensive is organized as a peer-to-peer, inter-disciplinary conversation hinging on three main activities: 1. Textual exegesis, translation (from French to English) of interviews, podcasts, and conference presentations, and critique. 2. Participation in two student-organized workshops with Mbembe’s interlocutors from different disciplines, e.g., Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Philosophy/French, Columbia University) and Abdourahman Waberi (Literature and Creative Writing, George Washington University). 3. Ongoing conversation and guided independent studies with the two professors teaching the intensive as they edit a volume on the themes of this intensive.
Working in English and French, this team-taught intensive allows students to collaboratively explore Mbembe’s ideas in ways that might not be possible in a traditional senior seminar. Our discussions will take place in English, with the French and Francophone Studies students reading some of the texts and writing their assignments in French for FFS credit. Patricia-Pia Celerier and Samson Opondo.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: INT
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AFRS 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Senior independent study program to be worked out in consultation with an instructor. The department.
Course Format: OTH
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American Sign Language: I. Introductory |
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ASL 105 - Beginning American Sign Language Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
Special permission.
Yearlong course ASL 105-106 .
Course Format: OTH
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ASL 106 - Beginning American Sign Language Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
Special permission.
Yearlong course ASL 105 -106.
Course Format: OTH
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American Sign Language: II. Intermediate |
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ASL 210 - Intermediate American Sign Language Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
Prerequisite(s): ASL 105 -106 or equivalent.
Yearlong course 210-ASL 211 .
Two 60-minute periods.
Course Format: OTH
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ASL 211 - Intermediate American Sign Language Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Prerequisite(s): ASL 210 .
Yearlong course ASL 210 -211.
Two 60-minute periods.
Course Format: OTH
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American Sign Language: III. Advanced |
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ASL 311 - Advanced American Sign Language Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Courses offered through SILP do not have individual course descriptions. ASL is listed under the languages offered in the existing description of the Self-Instructional Language Program.
Two 60-minute periods.
Course Format: OTH
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American Studies: Required Courses |
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AMST 100 - Introduction to American Studies Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course reveals and challenges the histories of the categories that contribute to the definition of “America.” The course explores ideas such as nationhood and the nation-state, democracy and citizenship, ethnic and racial identity, myths of frontier and facts of empire, borders and expansion, normativity and representation, sovereignty and religion, regionalism and transnationalism as these inform our understanding of the United States and American national identity. One goal of the course is to introduce students to important concepts and works in American Studies. Either AMST 100 or AMST 105 satisfies the 100-level core requirement of the American Studies major. Topics vary with expertise of the faculty teaching the course.
Topic for 2020/21a: The American Secular: Religion and the Nation-State. (Same as RELI 100 ) Is there a distinct realm in American politics and culture called the secular, a space or a mode of public discourse that is crucially free of and from the category of religion? This class considers the sorts of theoretical and historical moments in American life, letters, and practice that have, on the one hand, insisted the importance and necessity of such a realm, and on the other hand, resisted the very notion that religion should be kept out of the American public square. We ask whether it is possible or even desirable—in our politics, in our public institutions, in ourselves—to conceive of the secular and the religious as radically opposed. We ask if there are better ways to conceive of the secular and the religious in American life, ways that acknowledge their mutual interdependence rather than their exclusivity. Jonathon Kahn.
Open to first-year students and sophomores only.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 105 - Introduction to Native American Studies Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course is a multi-and interdisciplinary introduction to the basic philosophies, ideologies, and methodologies of the discipline of Native American Studies. It acquaints students with the history, art, literature, sociology, linguistics, politics, and epistemology according to an indigenous perspective while utilizing principles stemming from vast and various Native North American belief systems and cultural frameworks. Through reading assignments, films, and discussions, we learn to objectively examine topics such as orality, sovereignty, stereotypes, humor, language, resistance, spirituality, activism, identity, tribal politics, and environment among others. Overall, we work to problematize historical, ethnographical, and literary representations of Native people as a means to assess and evaluate western discourses of domination; at the same time, we focus on the various ways Native people and nations, both in their traditional homelands and urban areas, have been and are triumphing over 500+ years of colonization through acts of survival and continuance. Either AMST 100 or 105 will satisfy the 100-level core requirement of the American Studies major. Molly McGlennen.
Open to first-year students and sophomores only.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 250 - Critical Approaches to American Studies Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
In this course, students explore the history and present state of American Studies as a field and interdiscipline. Central to the course is its analysis of the logics of difference and the ways they have produced, sustained, challenged, and unmade the United States and its mythologies. We examine how indigeneity, race and ethnicity, sexuality and gender, and disability act as critical interventions of normative understandings of the nation-state and its definitions of citizenship. Importantly, we learn to situate primary texts within the tensions and trajectories of historical moments; curate archives of heuristic categories via a of variety of genres, as well as disciplinary and methodological approaches; and practice reading against the grain to map out the historiographical and epistemological meanings of American Studies topics. Finally, the course works to understand the transnational and global dynamic of “American” influence and culture, as it contends with the settler colonial and racialized bedrock of the United States and its institutions. Jonathon Kahn.
Required of students concentrating in the Program. Generally not open to Senior Majors. Open to other students with permission of the Director and as space permits.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 302 - Senior Thesis Intensive Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Required of students concentrating in the program. Molly McGlennen.
The senior thesis intensive is graded Distinction, Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory.
Course Format: INT
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AMST 303 - Senior Thesis or Project
0.5 unit(s)
Required of students concentrating in the program. The Department.
The senior project is graded Distinction, Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: INT
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AMST 313 - Multidisciplinary Research Methods
1 unit(s)
This course explores the challenges of conducting multi- and interdisciplinary inquiry within the field of American Studies. Drawing on key texts and innovative projects within the field, the course examines the ways in which varying disciplines make meaning of the world and puts specific modes of inquiry into practice. Students learn how to seek, produce, and evaluate different forms of evidence and how to shape this evidence in the direction of a broader project. Specific forms of inquiry may include: interpreting archival documents, conducting interviews, making maps, crafting field notes, analyzing cultural texts, among others.
Prerequisite(s): or co-requisite: a discipline-specific methods course appropriate to the student.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 315 - Senior Project Seminar
1 unit(s)
This course is required for all senior American Studies majors. The seminar engages current debates in the field of American Studies, as it prepares students to undertake the Senior Project. The course is designed to help students to identify a compelling research problem, locate appropriate critical resources, deepen their engagement with the disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods appropriate to their focus within the major, and locate their projects within a broader field of inquiry. Texts include Bruce Burgett and Glen Hendler, Keywords for American Culture Studies; Wayne Booth et al., The Craft of Research.
Corequisite(s): Senior Project; offered in the fall semester in the senior year.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 316 - Senior Project Lab Intensive Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This workshop is designed to help students embarking on the program’s senior project to identify a compelling research problem, locate appropriate critical resources, and deepen their engagement with the disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods appropriate to their focus within the major. Alongside the focus on individual projects, the participants in the workshop also identify a common research problem and discuss ways to approach it, by collectively building a syllabus and archive. Molly McGlennen.
Course Format: INT
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American Studies: Core Courses |
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AMST 160 - Art and Social Change in the United States
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 160 ) In this first-year writing seminar, we explore relationships between art, visual culture, and social change in the United States. Focusing on twentieth and twenty-first century social movements, we study artists and communities who have sought to inspire social change–to cultivate awareness, nurture new ideas, offer fresh visions, promote dialogue, encourage understanding, build and strengthen community, and inspire civic engagement and direct action–through creative visual expression. Lisa Collins.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AMST 203 - These American Lives: New Journalisms
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 203 ) This course examines the various forms of journalism that report on the diverse complexity of contemporary American lives. In a plain sense, this course is an investigation into American society. But the main emphasis of the course is on acquiring a sense of the different models of writing, especially in longform writing, that have defined and changed the norms of reportage in our culture. Students are encouraged to practice the basics of journalistic craft and to interrogate the role of journalists as intellectuals (or vice versa).
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 207 - Commercialized Childhoods
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 207 ) This course examines features of childhoods in the U.S. at different times and across different social contexts. The primary aims of the course are 1) to examine how we’ve come to the contemporary understanding of American childhood as a distinctive life phase and cultural construct, by reference to historical and cross-cultural examples, and 2) to recognize the diversity of childhoods that exist and the economic, geographical, political, and cultural factors that shape those experiences. Specific themes in the course examine the challenges of studying children; the social construction of childhood (how childhoods are constructed by a number of social forces, economic interests, technological determinants, cultural phenomena, discourses, etc.); processes of contemporary globalization and commodification of childhoods (children’s roles as consumers, as producers, and debates about children’s rights); as well as the intersecting dynamics of age, social class, race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in particular experiences of childhood. Eréndira Rueda.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AMST 231 - Native American Literature
1 unit(s)
This course examines Indigenous North American literatures from a Native American Studies perspective. Native American literature is particularly vast and diverse, representing over 500 Indigenous nations in the northern hemisphere and written/spoken in both Indigenous languages and languages of conquest (English, Spanish, French). Because of this range of writing and spoken stories, our goals for the class are to complicate our understanding of “texts,” to examine the origins of and evolution of tribal literatures (fiction, poetry, non fiction, graphic novel, etc.), and to comprehend the varied theoretical debates and frameworks that have created and nurtured a robust field of Native American literary criticism. A Native American Studies framework positions the literature as the creative work of Native peoples on behalf of their respective Nations or communities and complicated by the on-going legacy of colonialism. Authors include William Apess, Luther Standing Bear, Pauline Johnson, Mourning Dove, Gerald Vizenor, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Silko, Louise Erdrich, Wendy Rose, Thomas King, Beth Brant, Kimberly Blaeser, and Richard Van Camp, among other Native theorists, spoken word artists, filmmakers, and artists.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AMST 252 - The American Military at Home and Abroad
1 unit(s)
After 1945 the U.S. created the world’s largest and most far-reaching network of military bases. Today, more than 700 military bases in over 150 countries are hosts to American troops, civilian employees of the Department of Defense, and private military contractors. Readings explore the development of this unprecedented global network of military bases, the differing Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) that govern the relationship between the U.S. military and the local populations, as well as the impact of the U.S. troops on these communities. By taking a transnational perspective, we explore the possibilities and limits for democratic change due to the U.S. presence, but also the way in which America’s military deployments abroad brought about change at home. Assigned readings draw on the writing of scholars of the U.S. military, texts produced by opponents of the U.S. military, as well as artistic responses (films, plays, novels, poems) to the U.S. global base structure.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AMST 262 - Native American Women
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 262 ) In an effort to subjugate indigenous nations, colonizing and Christianizing enterprises in the Americas included the implicit understanding that subduing Native American women through rape and murder maintained imperial hierarchies of gender and power; this was necessary to eradicate Native people’s traditional egalitarian societies and uphold the colonial agenda. Needless to say, Native women’s stories and histories have been inaccurately portrayed, often tainted with nostalgia and delivered through a lens of western patriarchy and discourses of domination. Through class readings and writing assignments, discussions and films, this course examines Native women’s lives by considering the intersections of gender and race through indigenous frameworks. We expose Native women’s various cultural worldviews in order to reveal and assess the importance of indigenous women’s voices to national and global issues such as sexual violence, environmentalism, and health. The class also takes into consideration the shortcomings of western feminisms in relation to the realities of Native women and Native people’s sovereignty in general. Areas of particular importance to this course are indigenous women’s urban experience, Haudenosaunee influence on early U.S. suffragists, indigenous women in the creative arts, third-gender/two-spiritedness, and Native women’s traditional and contemporary roles as cultural carriers.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 265 - Decolonizing the Exhibition: Critical Approaches to Contemporary Indigenous Art Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
This course consists of two areas of inquiry: the study of the impact and importance of Indigenous art from a Native American Studies perspective and the research and exhibition of Inuit works on paper from the Edward J. Guarino Collection at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. We begin by exploring Indigenous art through culturally and tribally specific perspectives in order to challenge the ethnographic lens that has traditionally examined and catalogued Native artists. Through a Native American Studies framework, we approach Indigenous art not through western categories of artifact or craft, but as artworks that stress the continuance of Indigenous peoples in direct conversation with the non-Indigenous world. From this understanding, the class constructs an exhibition to be installed in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at the end of the semester. Students research and interpret Inuit works from the collection, design the exhibition installation, write the exhibition catalogue and create the accompanying website. Molly McGlennen.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 266 - Art, Urgency, and Everyday Life in the United States Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 266 and ART 266 ) An interdisciplinary exploration of how a range of U.S. based creators–through their artistic practices, aesthetic choices, and expressive interventions–are grappling with urgent issues of our time. Lisa Collins.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or coursework in Africana Studies, American Studies, Women’s Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
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AMST 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Permission of the director required.
Course Format: INT
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AMST 297 - Readings in American Studies
0.5 unit(s)
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: OTH
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AMST 298 - Independent Study Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Permission of the director required.
Course Format: OTH
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AMST 329 - American Literary Realism
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 329 ) Exploration of the literary concepts of realism and naturalism focusing on the theory and practice of fiction between 1870 and 1910, the first period in American literary history to be called modern. The course may examine past critical debates as well as the current controversy over realism in fiction. Attention is given to such questions as what constitutes reality in fiction, as well as the relationship of realism to other literary traditions. Authors may include Henry James, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Charles Chestnutt, Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, and Willa Cather.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 338 - German-American Encounters since WW I
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 338 ) This seminar explores the many ways in which Germans envisioned, feared, and embraced America in the course of the twentieth century. We start our readings with WWI and its aftermath, when German society was confronted and, as some feared, overwhelmed, by an influx of American soldiers, expatriates, industry, and popular culture. The Nazi Regime promised to overcome Weimar modernity and the alleged Americanization of German society, but embraced nonetheless aspects of American modernity in its quest to dominate Europe militarily and economically. For the period after WWII, we study in depth the U.S. military occupation (1945-1955), the almost seventy-year lasting military presence in West Germany, and the political, social and cultural implications of this transatlantic relationship.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AMST 352 - Indigenous Literatures of the Americas Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 352 and LALS 352 ) This course addresses a selection of creation narratives, historical accounts, poems, and other genres produced by indigenous authors from Pre-Columbian times to the present, using historical, linguistic and ethnographic approaches. We examine the use of non-alphabetic and alphabetic writing systems, study poetic and rhetorical devices, and examine indigenous historical consciousness and sociopolitical and gender dynamics through the vantage point of these works. Other topics include language revitalization, translation issues, and the rapport between linguistic structure and literary form. The languages and specific works to be examined are selected in consultation with course participants. They may include English or Spanish translations of works in Nahuatl, Zapotec, Yucatec and K’iche’ Maya, Quechua, Tupi, Aymara, and other indigenous languages of Latin America. David Tavárez.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 365 - Racial Borderlands
1 unit(s)
Borders have been made to demarcate geographic and social spaces. As such, they often divide and separate national states, populations, and their political and cultural practices. However, borders also serve as spaces of convergence and transgression. Employing a comparative and relational approach to the study of American cultures, this seminar examines concepts, theories and methodologies about race and ethnicity that emerged along the U.S. racial borderlands between the 18th and 20th centuries. We also consider the historical and contemporary ways in which discourses about race have been used to define, organize, and separate different social groups within the U.S. racial empire state. Throughout the semester we ask the following questions: How does race emerge as an idea in the U.S. political and social landscape? What is the relationship between race, gender and empire? What are the relational and historical ways in which ideas about race have been used to arrange and rank distinct social groups in the U.S. imperial body? How have these hierarchies shifted across space and time and how have different groups responded to these racial formations? Lastly, this seminar considers the future potential and limits of solidarity as a practice organized around ideas about race and exclusion for different marginalized populations within the U.S. empire state.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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AMST 366 - Art and Activism in the United States
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 366 , ART 366 , and WMST)366 Exquisite Intimacy. An interdisciplinary exploration of the work and role of quilts within the US. Closely considering quilts–as well as their creators, users, keepers, and interpreters–we study these integral coverings and the practices of their making and use with keen attention to their recurrence as core symbols in American history, literature, and life.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
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AMST 383 - Indigenous New York
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 383 ) Over half of all Native American people living in the United States now live in an urban area. The United States federal policies of the 1950’s brought thousands of Indigenous peoples to cities with the promise of jobs and a better life. Like so many compacts made between the United States and Native tribes, these agreements were rarely realized. Despite the cultural, political, and spiritual losses due to Termination and Relocation policies, Native American people have continued to survive and thrive in complex ways. This seminar examines the experiences of Indigenous peoples living in urban areas since the 1950’s, but also takes into consideration the elaborate urban centers that existed in the Americas before European contact. Using the New York region as our geographical center, we examine the pan-tribal movement, AIM, Red Power, education, powwowing, social and cultural centers, two-spiritedness, religious movements, and the arts. We study the manner in which different Native urban communities have both adopted western ways and recuperated specific cultural and spiritual traditions in order to build and nurture Indigenous continuance. Finally, in this course, we understand and define “urban” in very broad contexts, using the term to examine social, spiritual, geographical, material, and imagined spaces in which Indigenous people of North America locate themselves and their communities at different times and in different ways. Molly McGlennen.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS
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