This course brings together students, faculty, and invited guests to discuss the art of leadership and the opportunities and challenges women in leadership roles have encountered in their careers and how they have managed them. The sessions will be held in North Campus faculty residences and will feature prominent women from different professions and walks of life. Potential speakers include politicians; artists; writers; scientists; women in spiritual life; and business owners and entrepreneurs. Speakers will share their stories with students in an informal way, opening up faculty-facilitated discussions about gender, leadership, accomplishment, work-life balance, and mentorship. These talks may be interspersed with or supplemented by reading and discussion of recent writing on women and leadership.            

Full details for ASRC 1120 - Wonder Women

This two-course sequence assumes no previous knowledge of Arabic and provides a thorough grounding in the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It starts with the alphabet and the number system and builds the four skills gradually and systematically through carefully selected and organized materials focusing on specific, concrete and familiar topics such as self identification, family, travel, food, renting an apartment, study, the weather, etc.). These topics are listed in the textbook's table of contents.  The student who successfully completes the two-course sequence will have mastered about 1000 basic words and will be able to: 1) understand and actively participate in conversations on a limited range of practical topics such as self-identification, family, school, work, the weather, travel, etc., 2) read and understand, with the help of a short list of words, passages of up to 180 words written in Arabic script, and 3) discuss orally in class and write a 50-word paragraph in Arabic.  The two-course sequence aims to take the student from the Novice to the Intermediate Mid level according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.

Full details for ASRC 1201 - Elementary Arabic I

In this two-course sequence learners continue to develop the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing and grammar foundation through the extensive use of graded materials on a wide variety of topics.  While more attention is given to developing native-like pronunciation and to grammatical accuracy than in ARAB 1201 and ARAB 1202, the main focus of the course will be on encouraging fluency and facility in understanding the language and communicating ideas in it.  The student who successfully completes this two-course sequence will have mastered over 1500 new words and will be able to: 1) understand and actively participate in conversations related to a wide variety of topics beyond those covered in ARAB 1201 and ARAB 1202, such as the history and geography of the Arab world, food and health, sports, economic matters, the environment, politics, the Palestine problem, etc. 2) read and understand, with the help of a short list of words, passages of up to 300 words, and 3) discuss orally in class and write a 150-word paragraph in Arabic with fewer grammatical errors than in ARAB 1202.  The two-course sequence aims to take the student from the Intermediate Mid to the Advanced Mid level according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 1203 - Intermediate Arabic I

This course is an introduction to the music of Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to exploring the diversity of indigenous musics throughout the continent, students will learn how migration, colonialism, nationalism, and globalization contributed to the development of African popular musics, from early twentieth century genres to contemporary Afrobeats. Engaging scholarly and popular media texts, musical recordings, and documentary films, students will explore how music has negotiated political, economic, and health crises, and will critically examine the relationship between music and global representations of Africa.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 1330 - African Music

This course offers an introduction to the study of Africa, the U.S., the Caribbean and other diasporas.  This course will examine, through a range of disciplines, among them literature, history, politics, philosophy, the themes - including race/racism, the Middle Passage, sexuality, colonialism, and culture - that have dominated Africana Studies since its inception in the late-1960s. We will explore these issues in the attempt to understand how black lives have been shaped, in a historical sense; and, of course, the effects of these issues in the contemporary moment. This course seeks to introduce these themes, to investigate through one or more of the disciplines relevant to the question, and to provide a broad understanding of the themes so as to enable the kind of intellectual reflection critical to Africana Studies.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 1500 - Introduction to Africana Studies

Focusing on political and social history, this course surveys African-American history from Emancipation to the present. The class examines the post-Reconstruction "Nadir" of black life; the mass black insurgency against structural racism before and after World War II; and the Post-Reform Age that arose in the wake of the dismantling of legal segregation. The course will familiarize students with the basic themes of African-American life and experience and equip them to grasp concepts of political economy; class formation; and the intersection of race, class and gender.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 1595 - African American History From 1865

The short story is an ideal genre through which one might gain a basic introduction to African American literature and its major themes.  The foundational contributions to the development of the antebellum era of the nineteenth century were made by both black male and female authors during the fecund black literary renaissance of the 1850s, including "The Heroic Slave" by Frederick Douglass and "The Two Offers" by Frances E.W. Harper.  We will consider short stories by Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Charles Chesnutt, John Henrik Clarke, Ernest J. Gaines, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paule Marshall, Ann Petry, Mary Elizabeth Vroman, Alice Walker, and Richard Wright.  Through weekly entries in a reading journal, the production of six papers, and periodic in-class writing exercises, students will produce an extensive portfolio of written materials over the course of the semester.

Full details for ASRC 1822 - FWS: The African American Short Story

We have a range of expressions that deal with thinking. For example: She is very good at "thinking on her feet" or he "thinks fast" both denote speed of thought – or, the ability to command the response the moment or the encounter demands. However, in these expressions, we hardly ever raise the question of what thinking is. This course seeks to address precisely this issue, What is thinking?, through a reading of Martin Heidegger's work  Was Heiβt Denken? ("What is Called Thinking?") Heidegger is relentless in his pursuit of this question and as thorough as he can be. Still, it could be argued that the question remains incompletely answered, presenting itself as a challenge to us in our engagement with it. Was Heiβt Denken? Is the primary text for this course, with an excursion or two through the work of WEB DuBois and Michel Foucault in those moments that these figures turn their attention fully to thinking.

Full details for ASRC 1832 - FWS: Thinking Heidegger: Reading Was Heisst Denken

How did Blackness become an object of curiosity, desire and fascination? How did it become exotic? In this course, we will see that this is not the result of a recent development in the representation of black bodies. Rather the construction of Blackness as exotic/erotic originates as far as the beginnings of colonialism. We will look at how and why black bodies have been sexualized and commodified through literary and media representation. We will then turn to works by black intellectuals and writers who analyze and resist this form of cultural consumption. Students will critically address these issues and demonstrate their knowledge of the material through close readings and essay writing.

Full details for ASRC 1841 - FWS: Exotic/Erotic Blackness: Race, Sex and Cultural Consumption

This course explores the many ways that Black families are depicted on stage, with an emphasis on the work of 20th and 21st century African-American playwrights. Students will read plays by Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Lynn Nottage, among others. Writing assignments will encourage students to think critically about different aspects of the Black family, including the role of gender and sexuality, chosen families, and the ways that race shapes perceptions of the family unit. Students will leave the course with enhanced critical thinking and writing skills, and a greater appreciation of theater.

Full details for ASRC 1845 - FWS: Staging the Black Family

This seminar and its accompanying immersion offer undergraduates the unique opportunity to explore the abolition movement of upstate New York. This course provides an introductory examination of antebellum slavery and its abolition in the United States, including slave resistance, emancipation, reconstruction and effects of U.S. slavery on current social contexts. Students will also explore modern day slavery, forced labor, and contemporary abolition/resistance movements. Course participants will create a curriculum to be proposed to the Ithaca City School District for future undergraduate students to teach and learn with local youth about the area's Underground Railroad and community advocacy and activism. The weekend immersion trips offer an experiential learning opportunity as participants retrace routes of the local Underground Railroad and abolition movement through several cities in upstate New York and Southern Ontario, Canada. This seminar and corresponding travel are offered by Cornell's Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives, Engaged Learning & Research and Public Service Center.

Full details for ASRC 1996 - The Underground Railroad Seminar

An introductory interdisciplinary course focusing on Africa's geographical, ecological, social and demographic characteristics; indigenous institutions and values; multiple cultural heritage of Africanity, Islam, Western civilization, and emerging Asian/Chinese influence. Main historical developments and transition;  contemporary political, economic, social and cultural change with technological factor. Africa's ties with the United States (from trans-Atlantic slavery to the present). Its impact on the emerging world order and its contribution to world civilization will also be explored.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 2003 - Africa: The Continent and Its People

The central questions of philosophy are perennial and universal, but the answers that are given to them are always historical and idiomatic.  This course will introduce its enrollees to how these questions have been answered in the global African world; how they have thought about and sought to make sense of or solve some of the same philosophical problems that have remained at the core of the "Western" tradition. The readings are chosen from a global African perspective. This does not mean that we will not read any of the 'traditional' texts, but will be yielding the pride of place to much maligned and characteristically absent from the "mainstream" philosophical traditions and the ideas of people that are not normally considered worthy of study in the American academy. We wish to broaden our repertoire so that our knowledge will reflect the comparative perspectives that studying different traditions can offer while at the same time giving us access to the wisdom of peoples other than our own.

Catalog Distribution: (SBA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 2020 - Introduction to African Philosophy

This course is designed for students who can speak and understand a spoken Arabic dialect (Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, etc.) but have little or no knowledge of written Arabic, known as Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, or Fusha. The focus of the course will be on developing the reading and writing skills through the use of graded, but challenging and interesting materials. As they develop their reading and writing skills, students will be learning about Arab history, society, and culture. Classroom activities will be conducted totally in Arabic. Students will not be expected or pressured to speak in Classical Arabic, but will use their own dialects for speaking purposes. However, one of the main goals of the course will be to help the development of the skills to communicate and understand Educated Spoken Arabic, a form of Arabic that is based on the spoken dialects but uses the educated vocabulary and structures of Fusha.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 2105 - Arabic for Heritage Speakers

This undergraduate course introduces the formal and topical innovations that African cinema has experienced since its inception in the 1960s. Sections will explore, among others, Nollywood, sci-fi, and ideological cinema. Films include: Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako, Mohamed Camara's Dakan, Djibril Diop Mambéty's Touki-Bouki, Cheikh Oumar Sissoko's Finzan, Anne-Laure Folly's Women with Open Eyes, Ousmane Sembène's Camp de Thiaroye, Jean-Pierre Bekolo's Quartier Mozart.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 2235 - New Visions in African Cinema

In this class, we will examine how musicians working in such genres as rock, jazz, folk, classical, soul, and experimental music responded and contributed to the major themes of the 1960s in the US: the counterculture, Vietnam, the civil rights movement, women's liberation, and the space race. We will examine written texts, recordings, and films from the period. The ability to read music is not required.

Full details for ASRC 2260 - Music of the 1960s

This seminar examines some of the political and cultural visions of Africa and Africans held by African-American intellectuals and activists in the 19th and 20th centuries. Emphasis is placed on the philosophies of black nationalism, Pan Africanism and anticolonialism and the themes of emigration, expatriation, repatriation and exile. Awareness of Africa and attitudes toward the continent and its peoples have profoundly shaped African-American identity, culture and political consciousness. Notions of a linked fate between Africans and black Americans have long influenced black life and liberation struggles within the U.S. The motives, purposes and outlooks of African-American theorists who have claimed political, cultural, or spiritual connection to Africa and Africans have varied widely, though they have always powerfully reflected black experiences in America and in the West. The complexity and dynamism of those views belie simplistic assumptions about essential or "natural" relationships, and invite critical contemplation of the myriad roles that Africa has played in the African-American mind."

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 2354 - African American Visions of Africa

This course explores the social, cultural and communal lives of black women in North America, beginning with the transatlantic slave trade, and ending in 1900. Topics include Northern and Southern enslavement, first freedoms in the North, Southern emancipation, color consciousness, gener-cross racially and issues of class.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 2511 - Black Women to 1900

Designed for the general student population, this course specifically appeals to students traveling abroad, or who in the future will work with diverse communities (for example, students with interests in medicine, law, labor, government, business, the hospitality industry, or in the fields of gender, queer, or ethnic studies). Serving as an introduction to the critical inquiries and scholarly fields of the English department,   the course uses literature and popular culture, alongside literary, social, and cultural theory to consider how people from different cultures encounter and experience each other. Exploring travel and tourism from multiple perspectives including dark, disaster, and eco- tourisms, the course examines a history of racial representation, dating to the colonial era and that resonates in twenty-first century depictions of race, class, gender, and other markers of "difference."

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 2770 - Representing Racial Encounters/Encountering Racial Representations

In this two-semester sequence, learners will be introduced to authentic, unedited Arabic language materials ranging from short stories, and poems, to newspaper articles dealing with social,  political,  and cultural issues. Emphasis will be on developing fluency in oral expression through discussions of issues presented in the reading and listening selections. There will be more focus on the development of native-like pronunciation and accurate use of grammatical structures than in the previous four courses. A primary objective of the course is the development of the writing skill through free composition exercises in topics of interest to individual students.  This course starts where ARAB 2202 leaves off and continues the development of the four language skills and grammar foundation using 18 themes, some new and some introduced in previous courses but are presented here at a more challenging level.  The student who successfully completes this two-course sequence have mastered over 3000 new words and will be able, within context of the 18 new and recycled themes to: 1) understand and actively participate in conversations, 2) read and understand, with the help of a short list of words, authentic, unedited passages of up to 400 words, and 3) discuss orally in class and write a 300-word paragraph in Arabic with fewer grammatical errors than in ARAB 2202.  The two-course sequence aims to take the student from the Advanced Mid to the Superior level according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 3100 - Advanced Arabic I

Put into questions, the aims of this course are as follow: Should anyone worry about China's presence in Africa? Is China's presence part of the recolonizing of the Continent? Alternatively, is China's foray part of a global struggle for positioning between an emergent China and Africa's so-called traditional allies in the West?

Catalog Distribution: (SBA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 3330 - China-Africa Relations

This course explores Caribbean literary, sonic, and visual cultures in New York City from the late 19th century to the present, and examines the ways in which Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican diasporic artists experience New York, whether as tourists, residents, or exiles.  We will read about and visit places like Coney Island, Wall Street, Chinatown, Harlem, the Bronx, the Village, and Washington Heights.  Through the work of José Martí, Julia de Burgos, Manuel Ramos Otero, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Josefina Báez, and others, we will focus on such topics as immigration, transnationalism, imperialism, modernity, Latinx Caribbean influences on Bronx hip hop, gender, race, and sexuality.  Course readings and discussions in Spanish, English, and Spanglish.  Includes a 2-day trip to New York City in Week 3.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 3470 - Nueva York: Caribbean Urbanisms

This course is a survey of the visual artistic traditions of Africa. It investigates the different forms of visual art in relation to their historical and socio-cultural context. The symbolism and complexity of Africa's visual art traditions will be explored through the analysis of myth, ritual and cosmology, and history. In-depth analysis of particular African societies will be used to examine the relationship of the arts to indigenous concepts of time, space, color, form, aesthetics and socio-political order. The course will also investigate the modernist experience in African art. Therefore, art works produced within a modernist, post-modernist perspective, and other contemporary discourses will also be explored. Power Point presentations, films and videos will be used to illustrate material discussed in class.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 3501 - African Art and Culture

Blaxploitation films of the 1970s are remembered for their gigantic Afros, enormous guns, slammin' soundtracks, sex, drugs, nudity, and violence. Never before or since have so many African American performers been featured in starring roles. Macho male images were projected alongside strong, yet sexually submissive female ones. But how did these images affect the roles that black men and women played on and off the screen and the portrayal of the black body in contemporary society? This interdisciplinary course explores the range of ideas and methods used by critical thinkers in addressing the body in art, film, photography and the media. We will consider how the display of the black body affects how we see and interpret the world by examining the construction of beauty, fashion, hairstyles and gendered images as well as sexuality, violence, race, and hip-hop culture.

Catalog Distribution: (LA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 3505 - Blaxploitation Film and Photography

Pan-African Drum and Dance Ensemble is an introductory performance course where students learn performance traditions from across West Africa. No prior experience is necessary. Students may choose to focus on drumming or dancing.

Full details for ASRC 3612 - Pan-African Drum and Dance Ensemble

From "Defending our Name" efforts in the late nineteenth century to #SayHerName and #Me, Too in the new millennium, black women have been visible in this nation's public sphere standing at the vanguard in the fight to end racism, sexism and all forms of oppression.  Such political struggles by black women have been evident in Africa and throughout the diaspora.  We will explore black feminist and Africana womanist critical thought, tracking their developments from the late nineteenth century to the present by studying pivotal critical books and essays.  We will reflect on how this critical thought and theory has been advanced and institutionalized in areas ranging from black women's writing and literary criticism to black women's history.  We will consider how these movements have been advanced by black women activists and on black girls.  We will consider the impact of social media on black feminism and womanism in the contemporary era, as well as some of the key debates within these areas.

Catalog Distribution: (LA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 3630 - Black Feminism/Africana Womanism

What impact did Africa's involvement in the slave trade and its colonization by Europe have on its long-term economic health? What role have post-independence political decisions made within Africa and by multinational economic actors (the World Bank and the IMF, for example) had on altering the trajectory of Africa's economic history? Does China's recent heavy investment in Africa portend a movement away from or a continuation of Africa's economic underdevelopment? These questions and others will be addressed in this course. 

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 3652 - African Economic Development Histories

Full details for ASRC 4151 - Negrismo and Négritude: Art and Poetry of Hispano- and Francophone

It is almost a truism that the United States is the world's most litigious society. As a polity founded on an almost sacralized constitutional foundation, it is no surprise that law and the legal system are quite central to life, its conceptions, and its manifestations, as understood and led by most inhabitants of the country. This, in turn, engenders a faith in law and its attendant justice on the part of Americans. This faith encompasses certain attitudes on the part of different segments of the American populace towards legal discourse, the operation of the legal system, the justice promised by law, and so forth. In this class, we shall be exploring these diverse issues from the standpoint of Critical Race Theory. We seek to establish what CRT is and its genesis; what it does and how it does what it does, and what justification we might have or can provide for studying it. At the end of the class, participants should have a fairly robust idea of CRT, its fundamental claims, its applicability, and what insights it provides regarding the nature, function, and aims of law and the legal system in the United States of America.

Catalog Distribution: (SBA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 4304 - Critical Race Theory: What Is It? What Does It Do? Why Should It Matter?

This course focuses on the American South in the nineteenth century as it made the transition from Reconstruction to new forms of social organization and patterns of race relations. Reconstruction will be considered from a sociopolitical perspective, concentrating on the experiences of the freed people. The New South emphasis will include topics on labor relations, economic and political changes, new cultural alliances, the rise of agrarianism, and legalization of Jim Crow.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 4390 - Reconstruction and the New South

Hip hop has been dependent on women's contributions, yet female artists have had to work hard to contest their marginalization and objectification in the music and culture. Some of the most heated debates surrounding feminism, identity politics, and Black women are framed within the broad contours of hip hop. This course will explore how women are portrayed in hip hop music and culture, addressing women both as consumers and producers. We will draw on texts that analyze misogyny in hip hop music and music videos, while also looking at how both mainstream and peripheral female artists use hip hop to affirm their sexual power, articulate Black feminism, and create spaces for their artistic expression. We will utilize Black feminist theory, performance studies, and queer of color critique to complicate the ways in which women, gender, and sexuality are represented in hip hop music. While our analyses will center on music and on the United States, we will also consider art, fashion, and dance within Black, Latina, and Caribbean interactions with hip hop. We will investigate how youth construct gender and ethnic identities as they negotiate notions of African Diasporic belonging vis-à-vis hip hop. We will employ ethnographic, historical, sociological, literary, and interdisciplinary texts to explore these topics.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 4402 - Women in Hip Hop

This course examines the intersection of Africana/Black Studies and Postcolonial Studies.  Although the two fields are often perceived as being distinct from one another, in reality they overlap in significant ways as the result of the immense contributions of African and African Diaspora theorists and intellectuals to the rise and evolution of postcolonial studies. Course readings include original texts by theorists and scholars such as Frantz Fanon, Aimé Cesaire, W E B DuBois, Richard Wright, Edouard Glissant, C.L.R. James, Amilcar Cabral, Sylvia Winters, in addition to Nawal Sadawi, Edward Said,and Gayatri Spivak among others. We will explore the contributions made to both fields by feminist, gender, race, and sexuality studies.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 4514 - Post Colonial Studies and Black Radical Tradition

This course deals with educational innovations geared to promoting equal opportunity based on gender, race and class, in Africa and the African Diaspora. After an introduction of the concepts and theories of education and innovations and the stages of innovation as planned change, the course will focus on concrete cases and different types of educational innovations. The selected case studies, in the United States, include the creation and expansion of historically black institutions with a focus on Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), Lincoln University, Spelman College, and the Westside Preparatory School in Chicago. The African cases to be studied include African languages for instruction in Nigeria, science education also in Nigeria, Ujamaa and education for self-reliance in Tanzania, classroom action research in Lesotho, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in African higher education with a focus on African Virtual Universities (AVU), and OnLine learning at the University of in South Africa (UNISA). The education factor in Afropolitanism, the innovative impulse of African/Afropolitan youth in the 21st Century and the African Union's Agenda 2063 are also discussed.

Catalog Distribution: (SBA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 4601 - Educational Innovations in Africa and the Diaspora

This seminar examines the dynamics of modern collective identities which dominated the Egyptian public sphere in the long twentieth century. We will explore the underpinnings and formation of territorial Egyptian nationalism, pan-Arabism and Islamism through close readings and class discussions of important theoretical, historiographical and primary texts.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 4650 - Contesting Identities in Modern Egypt

How should anti-racist people respond to the new racialized white identities that have emerged recently in Europe and the United States?  What alternative conceptions of whiteness are available? How can we form cross-racial progressive coalitions? How should we understand the nature of our social identities and what they make possible?  This course is a wide-ranging introduction to these questions with readings drawn from social and cultural theory, as well as literature and film. Films include Get Out and I Am Not Your Negro, as well as such Hollywood classics as Imitation of Life. Texts by such writers as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Danzy Senna and Dorothy Allison, as well as relevant anthropological and social-theoretical work (Strangers in Their Own Land, Whiteness of a Different Color) and memoirs of anti-racist activists.  A central text will be the recent book The Future of Whiteness by the Latina feminist scholar Linda Martin Alcoff.

Catalog Distribution: (CA-AS)

Full details for ASRC 4733 - The Future of Whiteness

For senior Africana Studies majors working on honors theses, with selected reading, research projects, etc., under the supervision of a member of the Africana Studies and Research Center faculty.

Full details for ASRC 4900 - Honors Thesis

For students working on special topics, with selected reading, research projects, etc., under the supervision of a member of the Africana Studies and Research Center faculty.

Full details for ASRC 4902 - Independent Study

In this course, you will explore nakedness as a form of protest by various social movements and in compelling fictional texts. As you analyze nakedness from ancient Greece to 21th century Africa, Asia, and Latin America, you will also be attentive to the variables of race, gender, and bodily abilities and how they complicate this mode of political speech. Primary texts include Devi's "Draupadi," Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow, Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes, Tennyson's "Godiva," Auden's "Cave of Nakedness," videos of Femen, gay parades, and Occupy Wall Street. You will read these visual and literary texts in conjunction with theoretical reflections on shame/injury, exposure, and humanity by Freud, Foucault, Derrida, Levinas, Nancy, and Berger. Assignments will clarify and build upon the readings and films and include reflection papers, analytical, and argumentative essays.

Full details for ASRC 4947 - Bio-Politics and Poetics of Nakedness

This course examines racial and ethnic politics in the United States, highlighting its fundamental and constitutive role in shaping American politics more broadly. We will explore the political origins of the American racial order and the ways it has both persisted and changed over time. Focusing on participation, representation and resistance, we will emphasize the political agency of racialized groups while recognizing the power of institutions and policies in shaping their trajectory. This course should provide students with the knowledge and analytical tools necessary to better understand and more effectively study the complexities of race that loom large in a post-Ferguson, post-Obama America.  

Full details for ASRC 6022 - Racial and Ethnic Politics in the U.S.

This graduate seminar seeks to familiarize students with some of the most recent takes on transnational history that have emphasized the experiences of individuals and groups whose lives were affected by mobility across political boundaries. An explicit aim of the seminar is to use these border-crossing lives as a way to develop a critique of conventional areas studies frameworks and to explore the possibilities of imagining (geographically and otherwise) a different world (or multiple different ways of organizing global space). Since most of the readings will concentrate on the pre-nineteenth century world, the seminar will also offer students tools to rethink conventional narratives of the rise of a globalized world that tend to emphasize the second half of the nineteenth century as the birth of the global world. Globalization, this course will demonstrate, was happening long before most accepted narratives assert.

Full details for ASRC 6132 - Mobility, Circulation, Migration, Diaspora: Global Connections

African-American views of the questions of race in the decolonization in Africa, the question of freedom, and US foreign policy, including but not limited to W.E.B Dubois's internationalism, Richard Wright's view of the Bandung Conference, and Randall Robinson's anti-Apartheid positions. 

Full details for ASRC 6330 - Global Politics as an African Sensibility I: Alpha Blondy's Middle East

It is almost a truism that the United States is the world's most litigious society.   As a polity founded on an almost sacralized constitutional foundation, it is no surprise that law and the legal system are quite central to life, its conceptions, and its manifestations, as understood and led by most inhabitants of the country.  This, in turn, engenders a faith in law and its attendant justice on the part of Americans. This faith encompasses certain attitudes on the part of different segments of the American populace towards legal discourse, the operation of the legal system, the justice promised by law, and so forth. In this class, we shall be exploring these diverse issues from the standpoint of Critical Race Theory.  We seek to establish what CRT is and its genesis; what it does and how it does what it does, and what justification we might have or can provide for studying it. At the end of the class, participants should have a fairly robust idea of CRT, its fundamental claims, its applicability, and what insights it provides regarding the nature, function, and aims of law and the legal system in the United States of America.

Full details for ASRC 6340 - Critical Race Theory: What Is It? What Does It Do? Why Should It Matter?

This course focuses on the American South in the nineteenth century as it made the transition from Reconstruction to new forms of social organization and patterns of race relations. Reconstruction will be considered from a sociopolitical perspective, concentrating on the experiences of the freed people. The New South emphasis will include topics on labor relations, economic and political changes, new cultural alliances, the rise of agrarianism, and legalization of Jim Crow.

Full details for ASRC 6391 - Reconstruction and the New South

This course examines the intersection of Africana/Black Studies and Postcolonial Studies.  Although the two fields are often perceived as being distinct from one another, in reality they overlap in significant ways as the result of the immense contributions of African and African Diaspora theorists and intellectuals to the rise and evolution of postcolonial studies. Course readings include original texts by theorists and scholars such as Frantz Fanon, Aimé Cesaire, W E B DuBois, Albert Memmi, Edouard Glissant, Leopold Cedar Senghor, C.L.R. James, Amilcar Cabral, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o in addition to Nawal Sadawi, Edward Said,and Gayatri Spivak among others.  In addition, we will explore the contributions made to both fields by feminist, gender, race, and sexuality studies.

Full details for ASRC 6514 - Post Colonial Studies and Black Radical Tradition

Independent study course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ASRC 6900 - Independent Study

This class is the first in a two-part course sequence offered in the fall and spring semesters annually. In this hybrid theory and methods course, students will read historiographic, ethnographic, and sociological engagements about African-descended people throughout the Diaspora.

Full details for ASRC 6902 - Africana Studies Graduate Seminar

Provides an introduction to the Swahili language and culture. In this course, students engage in short conversations and communicative tasks in interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational modes on diverse topics such as family, communication and interactions, daily routines, shopping, asking for and giving directions, food, transportation, mood expressions and cultural sensitivity, etc. Students are also given tasks to help them develop knowledge of cultural aspects and language situations that are likely to be encountered in daily life interactions while in any Swahili speaking country. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Literature and cultural competence materials are incorporated into the course, along with audio-visual and web-based materials. By the end of this course students should be able at to reach proficiency level Novice Mid According to the American Council of on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL) www.actfl.org

Full details for SWAHL 1100 - Elementary Swahili I

Intermediate Swahili levels I and II in general impart speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills beyond Swahili elementary level to participate with ease and confidence in familiar topics and exchange information on unfamiliar topics. Students are assigned communicative tasks such as respond to a situation with a short text and take part in a discussion after viewing short video clips and prompts to elicit speaking and listening competence and cultural awareness responses beyond elementary level. The language and cultural scenarios practiced are designed to help students demonstrate language responses beyond familiar topics, and to feel comfortable conversing with Swahili native speakers, as well as to blend in and feel welcomed as part of the community while exploring different topics such as acquaintanceship, relationships, health, festivals, education, sports, housing, politics, commerce, travel, etc. Short stories are used to depict cultural aspects such as cultural expressions, proverbs, sayings, and riddles. Literature and cultural materials are incorporated into the course, along with audio-visual and web-based material. In this course, students have an opportunity to participate in language conversation outside the classroom and explore the opportunities for study abroad in East Africa. Swahili Elementary I and II are prerequisite for this course. By the end of this course, students should be able to reach proficiency level Intermediate High according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) www.actfl.org.

Full details for SWAHL 2101 - Intermediate Swahili I

Develops advanced speaking, reading, and writing skills with longer texts, films, advanced readings, and advanced oral discussion encompassing various topics. Examples of texts and films are; movies, novels, plays, poems, newspaper articles, essays, and speeches. Students will be prepared to narrate and describe events in a longer time frame. Students will also review and practice grammatical aspects and cultural expressions that pose challenges to non-native speakers when trying to comprehend native speakers. The course requires students to engage in small research projects during the course of study based on the student's areas of interest. During the course of study, students will have an opportunity to participate in language conversation outside the classroom and to engage in language conversational exchange with the students from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

Full details for SWAHL 3103 - Advanced Swahili I

Wolof is an African language. It is widely spoken in West Africa in countries such as Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal.  There are strong historical and contemporary links between the African American experiences and West Africa. Senegal and Wolof are important links in these experiences.  Wolof has some influence on some West European languages. Banana is a Wolof word and it is also an English word! Study Wolof, Know Africa and Know the world!

Full details for WOLOF 1117 - Elementary Wolof I

Wolof is an African language. It is widely spoken in West Africa in countries such as Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal.  There are strong historical and contemporary links between the African American experiences and West Africa. Senegal and Wolof are important links in these experiences.  Wolof has some influence on some West European languages. Banana is a Wolof word and it is also an English word! Study Wolof, Know Africa and Know the world!

Full details for WOLOF 2118 - Intermediate Wolof I

A two-semester beginner's course in Yoruba Language and Culture. Organized to offer Yoruba language skills and proficiency in speaking, reading, listening, writing, and translation. Focus is placed on familiar informal and formal contexts, e.g., home, school, work, family, social situations, politics, etc. Course uses Yoruba oral literature, proverbs, rhetoric, songs, popular videos, and theater, as learning tools for class comprehension. First semester focuses on conversation, speaking, and listening.  Second semester focuses on writing, translation and grammatical formation. Through the language course students gain basic background for the study of an African culture, arts, and history both in the continent and in the diaspora. Yoruba language is widely spoken along the west coast of Africa and in some African communities in diaspora.  Yoruba video culture, theater, music, and arts has a strong influence along the west coast and in the diaspora.A two-semester beginner's course in Yoruba Language and Culture. Organized to offer Yoruba language skills and proficiency in speaking, reading, listening, writing, and translation. Focus is placed on familiar informal and formal contexts, e.g., home, school, work, family, social situations, politics, etc. Course uses Yoruba oral literature, proverbs, rhetoric, songs, popular videos, and theater, as learning tools for class comprehension. First semester focuses on conversation, speaking, and listening.  Second semester focuses on writing, translation and grammatical formation. Through the language course students gain basic background for the study of an African culture, arts, and history both in the continent and in the diaspora. Yoruba language is widely spoken along the west coast of Africa and in some African communities in diaspora.  Yoruba video culture, theater, music, and arts has a strong influence along the west coast and in the diaspora.

Full details for YORUB 1108 - Introduction to Yoruba I

The intermediate course extends the development of the main language skills-reading, writing, listening, and conversation. The course deepens the development of correct native pronunciation, the accuracy of grammatical and syntactic structures; and the idiomatic nuances of the language. Students who take the course are able to (1) prepare, illustrate, and present Yoruba texts such as poems, folktales, advertisements, compositions, letters, (2) read Yoruba literature of average complexity, (3) interpret Yoruba visual texts of average difficulty, (4) comprehend Yoruba oral literature and philosophy-within the context of African oral literature and philosophy-of basic complexity. Through the Yoruba language students appreciate African oral literature and philosophy. The primary textual media are Yoruba short stories, poems, short plays, films, songs, and newspapers.

Full details for YORUB 2110 - Intermediate Yoruba I

This course will help students expand their understanding of the Yoruba language through the communicative approach. We will focus on the four skills, speaking, listening, learning, and writing.

Full details for YORUB 3110 - Advanced Yoruba I

IsiZulu is the most widely spoken language in the Southern African region and it is an official language of South Africa. This two-semester beginners' course emphasizes speaking and listening, and trains students to communicate in everyday situations.  In acquiring this competence, students are introduced to the structure of the language and to the significant status of Zulu language and culture in contemporary multilingual South Africa.  The course is structured around IsiZulu Sanamuhla, a set of web-based learning materials that features Zulu-speaking students and families in South Africa.

Full details for ZULU 1113 - Elementary Zulu I

The course is structured around IsiZulu Sanamuhla, a set of web-based learning materials that features Zulu-speaking students and families in South Africa.

Full details for ZULU 2116 - Intermediate Zulu I

The course is structured around IsiZulu Sanamuhla, a set of web-based learning materials that features Zulu-speaking students and families in South Africa.

Full details for ZULU 3113 - Advanced Zulu I