Courses

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 1202 - Elementary Arabic II

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.

Full details for ASRC 1500 - Introduction to Africana Studies

This course uses a multidisciplinary approach to explore the complex relationship between history and popular culture in Africa. The course considers two main questions - how can you write history using popular culture? And, how do artists use history to create popular culture? It uses examples from around the continent to explore old and new forms of popular culture; forms of cultural expression used by historians; as well as the ways in which artists use moments of great historical significance or key historical actors in their works. We consider, for example, the work of Leroy Vail who used songs by Mozambican peasants to write a social history of colonialism as well as films about colonialism by African film-makers such as the late Ousman Sembene.

Full details for ASRC 1590 - History and Popular Culture in Africa

This course offers an introduction to the philosophy of race. It canvasses key debates in the field concerning the metaphysical status of race, the relationship between the concept of race and racism (and the nature of the latter), the first-person reality of race, and the connections and disconnections between racial, ethnic, and national identities.

Full details for ASRC 1650 - Philosophy of Race

What is the Caribbean? How did its native inhabitants fared in the aftermath of the arrival of Europeans? How did the region shift from a Spanish Lake to a heavily contested geopolitical site where all European powers vied for political and commercial superiority? What were the main production systems of the region and how did they result in dramatic environmental change? How did the eighteenth-century revolutions transform the Caribbean? In this introductory survey to Caribbean history we will answer these and many other questions through the study of the political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental transformations of the Caribbean from the arrival of Columbus to the era of the Haitian Revolution. We will follow indigenous people, Spanish conquistadors, English, Dutch, and French pirates and privateers, planters, and merchants, imperial officers, slaves, sailors, and revolutionaries as they adapted to the multiple transformations that shaped this region. Through lectures, discussions, and readings of primary and secondary sources we will navigate the Caribbean in a quest to understand the historical processes that gave shape to this tropical paradise.

Full details for ASRC 1790 - Pirates, Slaves, and Revolutionaries: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to Louverture

What is the relationship between race, gender, sexuality, and politics in the American past? This course will introduce students to the historical study of African American LGBTQ life in the 20th century by way of reading interdisciplinary scholarship and writing expository prose. Students will read texts by authors such as Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Angela Davis and examine primary sources such as newspaper articles, magazines, film, and music to enhance analytic writing skills. Students will also complete individual writing exercises and collaborative activities that highlight key components of the academic writing process. Such assignments include regular journal entries, reading responses, abstract and thesis development tasks, and peer-review workshops.  

Full details for ASRC 1852 - FWS: Queering African American History

In the era of the Anthropocene, humanity must consider itself an environmental force. Global disasters—storms, drought, new diseases—call us to ask: Is this really the apocalypse? If so, what can we hope for? We will view African/African diasporic films that consider identity formation and its subsequent constructions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography. Examining responses to these primary questions of humanity, nature, belonging and agency in the time of the Anthropocene invites our critical reflection on the medium of filmmaking itself as we attend to the (im)possibilities of the category, 'African film'. Likely films include: Get Out, Moonlight, and The End of Eating Everything. Students will write reflection responses and film reviews and explore materials from across Africana studies, film studies, and psychoanalysis. The seminar encourages the production of a podcast, zine, short film or film festival proposal.

Full details for ASRC 1855 - FWS: The Anthropo(s)cene and African-African Diasporic Cinemas

On the eve of the American Revolution Britain administered 26 colonies—not just the 13 that would become the United States. British North America's dramatic struggle for independence has led many history textbooks to read the revolution back into colonial history, focusing on those 13 North American colonies that would become the United States, often at the expense of global connections that defined the colonial and revolutionary periods. As this class will explore, key elements of early American history can only be understood through a broader perspective, from the economic growth of New England as a result of the African slave trade and exchange in the Caribbean, to the use of citizenship as a category of exclusion in response to the myriad inhabitants—European, Indigenous, and African—who neighbored or lived within the original 13 colonies. In this course, we will explore the history of early America from the 1490s through the 1800s from a global perspective. Voices usually peripheral to the narrative of American development, from enslaved African mariners to Spanish American nuns, will become central to processes of cultural encounter, labor exploitation, revolutionary upheavals, and state formation that shaped the making and unmaking early America.

Full details for ASRC 1985 - From Subjects to Citizens: The Making and Unmaking of Early America

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.

Full details for ASRC 2200 - Intermediate Arabic II

This course is designed for students who are interested in reading the language of the Qur'an with accuracy and understanding. The first week (4 classes) will be devoted to an introduction of the history of the Qur'an: the revelation, collection, variant readings, and establishment of an authoritative edition. The last week will be devoted to a general overview of "revisionist" literature on the Qur'an. In the remaining 12 weeks, we will cover all of Part 30 (Juz' 'Amma, suuras 78-114) and three suuras of varying length (36, 19, and 12).

Full details for ASRC 2204 - Introduction to Quranic Arabic

This course uses a multi-disciplinary approach to examine the importance of textiles in African social and economic history. It combines art history, anthropology, social and economic history to explore the role of textiles in marking status, gender, political authority and ethnicity. In addition, we examine the production and distribution of indigenous cloth and the consequences of colonial rule on African textile industries. Our analysis also considers the principles of African dress and clothing that shaped the African diaspora in the Americas as well as the more recent popularity and use of African fabrics and dress in the United States.

Full details for ASRC 2452 - Dress Cloth and Identity

This course will introduce students to the African American literary tradition. Through aesthetic and contextual approaches, we will consider how African American life and culture has defined and constituted the United States of America. From slave narratives to Hip-Hop music, we will trace the range of artistic conventions and cultural movements while paying close attention to broader historical shifts in American life over the past three centuries. We will ask: How do authors create and define a tradition? What are some of the recurring themes and motifs within this tradition? Authors will include: David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Claudia Rankine, and Chimamanda Adichie.

Full details for ASRC 2650 - Introduction to African American Literature

Following the conquests of Alexander, the ancient civilization of Egypt came under Greek rule. This period is best known for its famous queen Cleopatra, the last independent ruler of ancient Egypt. But even before Cleopatra's life and death, the Egypt that she governed was a fascinating place – and a rich case study in cultural interactions under ancient imperialism. This course explores life in Egypt under Greek rule, during the three centuries known as the Ptolemaic period (named after Cleopatra's family, the Ptolemaic dynasty). We will examine the history and culture of Ptolemaic Egypt, an empire at the crossroads of Africa, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. We will explore the experiences of both Egyptians and Greeks living in this multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-linguistic society. Finally, we will investigate the ways that Ptolemaic Egypt can shed light on modern experiences of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization.

Full details for ASRC 2688 - Cleopatra's Egypt: Tradition and Transformation

This seminar offers an introduction to the humanities by exploring the historical, cultural, social and political themes. Students will explore themes in critical dialogue with a range of texts and media drawn from the arts, humanities, and/or humanistic social sciences. Guest speakers, including Cornell faculty and Society for the Humanities Fellows, will present from different disciplines and points of view. Students will make field trips to local sites relevant to the theme, and visit Cornell special collections and archives. Students enrolled in this seminar will have the opportunity to participate in additional programming related to the Society's annual focus theme and the Humanities Scholars Program for undergraduate humanities research.

Full details for ASRC 2750 - Introduction to Humanities

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.

Full details for ASRC 3101 - Advanced Arabic II

One way to think of African American literature is to recognize that certain themes and motifs recur and tell a story that one can study across time from slavery to freedom.  Solid literacies in this field not only provide valuable interpretive contexts for analyzing various aspects of African American and diasporan life and culture, but can reinforce work in a range of other fields, from Africana studies to American literature.  Additionally, they reinforce skills in reading and analysis of literature, as well as writing, that will pay off now and as time goes on.  We will examine selections from authors in African American literary history from the 18th century into the 1930s.  Authors who will be examined include Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Wilson, Charles Chesnutt, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Booker T.  Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, and Langston Hughes.  The production of early African American literature was grounded in genres such as poetry, the novel, the short story, the slave narrative, the spiritual narrative, and autobiography, all of which will be explored.  It will be especially important for us to recognize the foundational contributions of African Americans to such fiction genres as the short story and the novel by the 1850s, forming a renaissance of sorts.  Additionally, we will consider the impact of oral forms on African American writing such as spirituals and folk tales.  We will consider the development of African American literature across a range of historical contexts, including the Revolutionary/Enlightenment period, the antebellum period, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Harlem Renaissance/Jazz Age.

Full details for ASRC 3507 - African American Literature Through the 1930's

What is dissent, and what is its relationship to American Democratic principles? This course will examine the various forms of dissent and counter dissent in U.S. history from the Colonial phase to the present. Organized by a thematic structure, each week the course will consider a different group from the earliest to the most contemporary protests of Indigenous People, Abolitionists and anti-slavery tactics, Women's and Environmental movements, etc. Our explorations will consider a variety of primary sources, literature, film, and secondary scholarship. For a longer description and instructor bio visit the Society for the Humanities website.  

Full details for ASRC 3626 - Dissent and Protest in U.S. History

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. 

Full details for ASRC 3652 - African Economic Development Histories

When an African and an African American meet, solidarity is presumed, but often friction is the result. In this course, we will consider how Africans and African Americans see each other through literature. What happens when two peoples suffering from double consciousness meet? We will examine the influence of historical forces including slavery, colonialism and pan-Africanism on the way writers explore the meeting between Africans and African Americans. Specifically we will look at how writers such as W.E.B DuBois, Maya Angelou, NoViolet Bulawayo, Chimamanda Adichie, Richard Wright, Eugene Robinson, Philippe Wamba, Teju Cole, and Malcolm X have understood the meeting.

Full details for ASRC 3742 - Africans and African Americans in Literature

This course examines how African writers, filmmakers, and internet media content creators engage with and revise public images of bodies—specifically pleasure, gender, queerness, genital surgeries, sex strike, etc. Our inquiry also surveys African theorists' commitment in highlighting forms of agency on the continent in addition to troubling longstanding and problematic colonialist tropes of pathologization of Africans. These topical explorations will be achieved through analyses of storytelling, digitality, the aestheticization of violence, and social change theories. Through contemporary films, digital platforms, novels, and essays, we will reflect on the precarious, yet empowering, nature of the body in the post-independence African experience. Public speaking (class discussions, student presentation) and deep attention to writing (reaction papers, an abstract, and annotated bibliography, and a final paper) will help you to refine your understanding of body politics.

Full details for ASRC 3977 - Body Politics in African Literature, Cinema, and New Media

Rates of chronic disease and other health conditions, including mental illness and substance use disorders, have surged over the past three decades, owing largely to structural factors associated with the fragmentation of national healthcare systems, diminished social support networks, and government subsidization of unhealthy foods and hazardous pharmaceuticals. These issues are especially amplified in ethnoracial communities: for example, Blacks and Latinos typically have higher rates of disease in comparison to their non-Black counterparts, even after adjusting for factors such as income and education level. This course investigates the complex political, economic and cultural forces which contribute to health inequities. Students will be exposed to case studies throughout various diasporas—from Harlem to Cape Town—to understand the intricate ways in which race and health interact.

Full details for ASRC 4002 - Diasporic and Indigenous Health

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 4390 - Reconstruction and the New South

Anna Julia Cooper's pioneering publication of A Voice from the South (1892) underscores the centrality of black women in determining the possibilities for black racial uplift in the nation. Areas from local color and regionalism, to contemporary fields such as cultural geography, have underscored the impact of geography on identity. Such insights have increasingly underscored that region matters in shaping black women's identities in the U.S., along with their various cultural productions. Black women writers in the U.S. South played a salient role in shaping the black women's literature renaissance of the 1970s in both writing and theorizing literature, and thus, in expanding the conventional canons in African American and American literature more broadly. This course considers the new generation of writers of black women that has emerged in the U.S. South in more recent years in the twenty first century, whose writings have increasingly impacted the development of contemporary African American literature. This course is designed to meet this body of material with serious reading, study and critical analysis. Genres that we will explore include the novel, poetry, the essay and the memoir, along with visual art. We will consider a range of newer authors, including Edwidge Danticat, Honorée Jeffers, Tayari Jones, Valdez Perkins, Natasha Tretheway, Jesmyn Ward, and Shay Youngblood. Concomitantly, we will explore the visual art of Kara Walker. We will consider ways in which these writers build upon established themes and conventions in African American and black women's writing and the implications of their work for black feminist theory. Furthermore, we will examine the impact of their work within the emergent field of twenty first century African American literature and criticism.

Full details for ASRC 4403 - New Black Southern Women Writers

How has the fiction and art of queers of color transformed the worlds we know? How have their theoretical interventions created new queer freedoms and new understandings of race and sexualities?  In this course we will focus on the struggles against subjugation led by Black and Latinx artists and writers including Audre Lorde, Gabby Rivera, Marlon Riggs, Félix, González-Torres, Essex Hemphill, Gloria Anzaldúa, James Baldwin, Cherríe Moraga. Building on their work, will turn to queer of color theory, a conceptual field that interrogates the ways race, gender, sexuality, regimes of embodiment, and class reinforce racializing technologies, in order to learn what queer of color thinkers can teach us about globalization, incarceration, immigration as well as joy, pleasure, intoxication, the unruly and the opaque.

Full details for ASRC 4555 - Queer Proximities

There are two contrasting views of the status and role of women in Africa. One view portrays African women as controlled by men in all social institutions. Another view projects women as having a relatively favorable position in indigenous societies they were active with an identity independent of men's and no concentration of women in a private sphere while men controlled the public sphere. This course examines critical gender theories and women in historical and contemporary periods. The topics covered include: non-westernized/pre-colonial societies; the impact and legacy of colonial policies; access to education and knowledge; women in politics and the economy in local and global contexts; women's organizations; armed conflicts and peace; same gender love and evolving family values; the law and health challenges; the United Nations and World Conferences on Women: Mexico 1975, Copenhagen 1980, Nairobi 1985, Beijing 1995 and post-Beijing meetings, and the 2010 superstructure of UN Women, and Beijing +20 in 2015 with the UN Women's slogan "Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!"

Full details for ASRC 4602 - Women and Gender Issues in Africa

Often referred to as a "second skin", aesthetic representations of clothing open the possibility of reimagining the visual economy of race—the belief that race can be located in the body's visible features and characteristics. Bringing together the research methods of visual culture, material culture, and literary studies, and moving among photographic, painted, and literary portrayals by and of African Americans, we will explore fashion and clothing as aesthetic practices of everyday life that defy racism's flattening and objectifying effects. The course will pay particular attention to artwork that explores the multiple valences of "fabrication"—working with materials, making and fictionalizing—to reveal and reconfigure the psychic consequences of living under the gaze of white dominance. For longer description and instructor bio visit The Society for the Humanities website.

Full details for ASRC 4658 - Fabricating Race: Art, Clothing, Resistance

This course focuses on issues of conflict, peace, and reconciliation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories as well as Sub-Saharan Africa. Both regions exemplify how issues ranging from nationalism and ethnocentrism to land, water and resource management, climate change and migration, as well as socio-psychological dynamics, can exacerbate conflicts. At the same time, these regions also exemplify how trans-border collaboration and regional integration, civilian peace building efforts, strategies for achieving historical justice, as well as science education and science diplomacy can become crucial tools for long-term peace-building, reconciliation and development. In this course we will work with and discuss issues of peace and conflict with policy-makers and local stakeholders involved in peace-building efforts.

Full details for ASRC 4721 - Peace Building in Conflict Regions: Case Studies Sub-Saharan Africa Israel Palestinian Territories

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 4901 - 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 4903 - Independent Study

This course covers the basic epistemology for social sciences research, integrating an explicit focus on applied mixed methods approaches (quantitative and qualitative) for conducting original "real world" research on humans. While these cognates will be approached theoretically, the course's primary concentration will be on the praxis of quantifying and contextualizing the experiences, attitudes, and social/health outcomes of historically marginalized and "hidden" populations, including people who are Black, Latino and indigenous, LGBTQ+, and individuals with a disability, mental illness or substance use disorder, with an intersectional lens. While not offering an exhaustive review of individual quantitative or qualitative methodologies, students will learn the fundamentals of curating a substantive research framework on marginalized and hidden populations, ethically engaging and recruiting people into their studies, collecting and analyzing data, and meaningfully disseminating research findings. 

Full details for ASRC 6003 - Doing Research With Marginalized Populations

In this graduate seminar, we will read Franz Fanon's classic texts Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth in order to trace and interrogate his evolving critiques of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical clinical practices in the colonial world. We will examine his critiques of Hegel's theory of the subject and Lacanian models of subject formation and his call for the incorporation of social analysis in approaches to Black subjectivity and psychic life (sociogeny). What implications does sociogeny have for reading the black body and its relation to self and society? Our reading of Fanon's texts will be placed in dialogue with works by Aimé Césaire, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, and David Marriott.

Full details for ASRC 6010 - Psychoanalysis and Race

This class is devoted to the in-depth study of the works of W.E.B. DuBois. The aim is to locate DuBois in the general philosophicalfimament while mining his works for specific philosophical insights that they embody and laying bare the contributions that he has made to our understanding of some of the great questions that occupy the energies wherever they happen to be located. Finally, we seek to elicit how his Afican American inheritance inspired him and is itself impacted by his philosophical exertions.

Full details for ASRC 6204 - Africana Philosophy: W.E.B Du Bois

This course examines black feminist theories as they are articulated in the cross-cultural experiences of women across the African Diaspora. We will explore a variety of theories, texts and creative encounters within their socio-political and geographical frames and locations, analyzing these against, or in relation to, a range of feminist activisms and movements. Some key categories of discussion will include Black Left Feminism, Feminist Movements in Latin America and the Caribbean and African feminisms. Texts like the Combahee River Collective statement and a variety of US Black feminist positions and the related literature as well as earlier black feminist articulations such as the Sojourners for Truth and Justice will also be engaged. Students will have the opportunity to develop their own research projects from a range of possibilities.

Full details for ASRC 6207 - Black Feminist Theories: Sexuality, Creativity, and Power

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

Anna Julia Cooper's pioneering publication of A Voice from the South (1892) underscores the centrality of black women in determining the possibilities for black racial uplift in the nation. Areas from local color and regionalism, to contemporary fields such as cultural geography, have underscored the impact of geography on identity. Such insights have increasingly underscored that region matters in shaping black women's identities in the U.S., along with their various cultural productions. Black women writers in the U.S. South played a salient role in shaping the black women's literature renaissance of the 1970s in both writing and theorizing literature, and thus, in expanding the conventional canons in African American and American literature more broadly. This course considers the new generation of writers of black women that has emerged in the U.S. South in more recent years in the twenty first century, whose writings have increasingly impacted the development of contemporary African American literature. This course is designed to meet this body of material with serious reading, study and critical analysis. Genres that we will explore include the novel, poetry, the essay and the memoir, along with visual art. We will consider a range of newer authors, including Edwidge Danticat, Honorée Jeffers, Tayari Jones, Valdez Perkins, Natasha Tretheway, Jesmyn Ward, and Shay Youngblood. Concomitantly, we will explore the visual art of Kara Walker. We will consider ways in which these writers build upon established themes and conventions in African American and black women's writing and the implications of their work for black feminist theory. Furthermore, we will examine the impact of their work within the emergent field of twenty first century African American literature and criticism.

Full details for ASRC 6403 - New Black Southern Women Writers

How has the fiction and art of queers of color transformed the worlds we know? How have their theoretical interventions created new queer freedoms and new understandings of race and sexualities?  In this course we will focus on the struggles against subjugation led by Black and Latinx artists and writers including Audre Lorde, Gabby Rivera, Marlon Riggs, Félix, González-Torres, Essex Hemphill, Gloria Anzaldúa, James Baldwin, Cherríe Moraga. Building on their work, will turn to queer of color theory, a conceptual field that interrogates the ways race, gender, sexuality, regimes of embodiment, and class reinforce racializing technologies, in order to learn what queer of color thinkers can teach us about globalization, incarceration, immigration as well as joy, pleasure, intoxication, the unruly and the opaque.

Full details for ASRC 6555 - Queer Proximities

There are two contrasting views of the status and role of women in Africa. One view portrays African women as controlled by men in all social institutions. Another view projects women as having a relatively favorable position in indigenous societies they were active with an identity independent of men's and no concentration of women in a private sphere while men controlled the public sphere. This course examines critical gender theories and women in historical and contemporary periods. The topics covered include: non-westernized/pre-colonial societies; the impact and legacy of colonial policies; access to education and knowledge; women in politics and the economy in local and global contexts; women's organizations; armed conflicts and peace; same gender love and evolving family values; the law and health challenges; the United Nations and World Conferences on Women: Mexico 1975, Copenhagen 1980, Nairobi 1985, Beijing 1995 and post-Beijing meetings, and the 2010 superstructure of UN Women.

Full details for ASRC 6602 - Women and Gender Issues in Africa

Often referred to as a "second skin", aesthetic representations of clothing open the possibility of reimagining the visual economy of race—the belief that race can be located in the body's visible features and characteristics. Bringing together the research methods of visual culture, material culture, and literary studies, and moving among photographic, painted, and literary portrayals by and of African Americans, we will explore fashion and clothing as aesthetic practices of everyday life that defy racism's flattening and objectifying effects. The course will pay particular attention to artwork that explores the multiple valences of "fabrication"—working with materials, making and fictionalizing—to reveal and reconfigure the psychic consequences of living under the gaze of white dominance. For longer description and instructor bio visit The Society for the Humanities website.

Full details for ASRC 6658 - Fabricating Race: Art, Clothing, Resistance

Urban Representation Labs are intended to bring students and faculty into direct contact with complex urban representations spanning a wide media spectrum and evoking a broad set of humanist discourses. Students will leverage archival materials at Cornell to launch new observations and explore unanticipated approaches to urban culture that derive from previously understudied archival materials. The goal is twofold: to demystify the representational technologies involved in presenting the city, and to unpack the political, cultural, and aesthetic values and priorities embedded in every form of presentation. Urban Representation Labs are offered under the auspices of Cornell University's Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Collaborative Studies in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities grant. For current special topic seminar description and application instructions, visit our urban seminars page.

Full details for ASRC 6819 - Urban Representation

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 6901 - Independent Study

The seminar is coordinated and supervised by one professor but team taught by three or four faculty members per semester. Each participating faculty member is responsible for a topical segment of the course related to her or his areas of specialization or an area of interest pertaining to theory and methodology of Africana Studies.

Full details for ASRC 6903 - Africana Studies Graduate Seminar

Elementary Swahili provides a foundation in listening, speaking, reading, and writing the basic grammatical structures and vocabulary. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Swahili (Kiswahili) is spoken in the East and Central parts of Africa. It is an official and national language in Tanzania, and in Kenya. During a first semester course, students engage in short conversation and communicative tasks, such as, greetings, introduction, daily routines, shopping, etc. Students learn to comprehend short and simple utterances about topics pertaining to basic personal information and immediate setting in day to day life. A Swahili second semester increases your oral fluency, grammar, vocabulary, writing, reading, and listening skills. All listening exercises will aim at preparing students to speak. Be ready to actively participate in conversations, to express yourself orally, and write stories/compositions. Literature and Cultural materials are incorporated into the course, along with audio, video, and web-based materials.

Full details for SWAHL 1101 - Elementary Swahili II

This course is intended for students whom will be spending the summer in Tanzania for the Global Health Program.  To prepare students to live and learn in Tanzania, this course will provide an introduction to and foundation in basic Kiswahili.  Students will develop the capacity to communicate with Tanzanian peers and homestay families, as well as develop the competency to navigate community life in Tanzania. Since this is a one credit seminar, this course does NOT fulfill a language requirement for colleges or majors.This course is intended for students whom will be spending the summer in Tanzania for the Global Health Program.  To prepare students to live and learn in Tanzania, this course will provide an introduction to and foundation in basic Kiswahili.  Students will develop the capacity to communicate with Tanzanian peers and homestay families, as well as develop the competency to navigate community life in Tanzania. Since this is a one credit seminar, this course does NOT fulfill a language requirement for colleges or majors.

Full details for SWAHL 1107 - Elementary Swahili for Global Health

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 2102 - Intermediate Swahili II

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 1118 - Elementary Wolof II

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 WOLOF 2119 - Intermediate Wolof II

Full details for WOLOF 3114 - Advanced Wolof II

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. 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 on 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 have strong influence along the west coast and in the diaspora.

Full details for YORUB 1109 - Introduction to Yoruba II

Intermediate Yoruba II is a follow-up to Intermediate Yoruba I. It is a fourth-semester Yoruba language course. The course assists students to acquire advanced level proficiency in reading, speaking, writing, and listening in Yoruba language. Students are introduced to grammatical and syntactic structures in the language that will assist them in describing, presenting, and narrating information in the basic tenses. At the end of the course, students will be able to listen to, process, and understand programs produced for native speakers in media such as television, radio, and films. They will be able to read and understand short stories, novels, and plays written for native speakers of the language.

Full details for YORUB 2111 - Intermediate Yoruba II

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 3111 - Advanced Yoruba II

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.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 1116 - Elementary Zulu II

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 2117 - Intermediate Zulu II

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 3114 - Advanced Zulu II