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

At the inception of this department at Cornell University in 1969, the Africana Studies and Research Center became the birthplace of the field Africana studies. Africana studies emphasizes comparative and interdisciplinary studies of Africa, the U.S., the Caribbean and other diasporas. In this course, we will look at the diverse contours of the discipline. We will explore contexts ranging from modernity and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and plantation complex in the New World to processes of decolonization and globalization in the contemporary digital age. 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 an 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, investigate through one or more of the disciplines relevant to the question, and 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

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.

Full details for ASRC 1595 - African American History from 1865

“In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live” wrote Ralph Ellison in his 1955 essay “Living with Music.” Like Ellison, in “Black Music Writing: Listening for Revolutions” we will journey through the sonic worlds of influential Black musicians and the writers who endeavor to help us understand their contributions. We’ll learn from Farah Jasmine Griffin’s ephemeral writings on Billie Holiday and Daphne Brooks’ soul stirring considerations of Nina Simone. We’ll also look to cultural critics like New Yorker contributor Doreen St. Felix and New York Times Critic-At-Large Wesley Morris. Black music has long been the soundtrack to revolution and those who hear are the conductors of change.

Full details for ASRC 1823 - FWS: Black Music Writing

This seminar explores how we (re)present our deepest commitments, religious or otherwise, to one another and especially in various (digital) publics. The textual examples will be taken from Black religious writings in the 20th and 21st centuries. Among other important questions, the seminar will ask: Why and how does faith matter to certain people of African descent? How have they expressed their (secular) faith or religious commitments in public? How might these religious writers model what it means for us to write with conviction? This writing seminar will explore these questions and how religious writings have mattered in the context of struggle and resistance.

Full details for ASRC 1862 - FWS: Black Faith Writing Matters

The digital revolution has made an enormous amount of information available to research scholars, but discovering resources and using them effectively can be challenging. This course introduces students with research interests in Latino and Africana Studies to search strategies and methods for finding materials in various formats (e.g., digital, film, and print) using information databases such as the library catalog, print and electronic indexes, and the World Wide Web. Instructors provide equal time for lecture and hands-on learning. Topics include government documents, statistics, subject-specific online databases, social sciences, the humanities, and electronic citation management.

Full details for ASRC 1900 - Research Strategies in Africana and Latino Studies

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 explores the changing meaning of American freedom and citizenship in the context of the long struggle for black liberation. Relying on social and political history, it confronts the promise, possibilities, and limitations of civil rights and human rights in the twentieth century. We examine various “rights” discourses and their role in reconfiguring our legal landscape and cultural mores, molding national and group identity, bestowing social and moral legitimacy, shaping and containing political dissent, reinvigorating and redefining the egalitarian creed, and challenging as well as justifying the distribution of wealth and power in the U.S. We examine the attempts of subjugated groups to transcend narrow social definitions of freedom, and we confront the question of formal political rights versus broader notions of economic justice in a national and international context.

Full details for ASRC 2353 - Civil Rights vs. Human Rights in the Black Freedom Struggle

The vast Congo Basin region has shaped the world in ways that are often ignored. Its mineral resources travel the globe - the uranium used to bomb Japan in 1945 came from the Congo, and if you have a cellphone, you probably have a bit of the Congo in your pocket. But the region has been a key site for global trade for centuries. More than 400 years ago, diplomats from the mighty Kongo kingdom were stationed in Brazil and Europe, intervening in global affairs. Later, more than seven million enslaved people were forcibly taken from the region, a trade that brought terrible suffering, but also ensured that Congo region culture and politics would shape the Atlantic world. The Congo's first democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, inspired generations of freedom fighters around the world, and his assassination at the hands of Belgian forces and their Congolese allies (with aid from Canadian soldiers and the CIA) has inspired outrage ever since - and transformed African geopolitics. The Congo was arguably the site of the first struggle for a second decolonization on the African continent, and activists have been fighting to democratize the state since the 1960s. It is famed for its novelists, philosophers, musicians, and artists. This course will explore the Congo region's global influence, and consider how diverse globalizations shaped the region.

Full details for ASRC 2556 - The Global Congo: Diplomacy, Extraction, and Resistance

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 2650 - Philosophy of Race

This course examines major trends in the evolution of the Middle East in the modern era. Focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries and ending with the Arab Spring, we will consider Middle East history with an emphasis on five themes: imperialism, nationalism, modernization, Islam, and revolution. Readings will be supplemented with translated primary sources, which will form the backbone of class discussions.

Full details for ASRC 2674 - History of the Modern Middle East

This course will introduce students to African American literary traditions in the space that would become North America. From early freedom narratives and poetry to Hip-Hop and film, we will trace a range of artistic conventions and cultural movements while paying close attention to broader historical shifts in American life over the past three centuries. We'll read broadly: poetry, fiction, speculative fiction, newspapers, and the like. We will ask: How do authors create, define, and even exceed a tradition? What are some of the recurring themes and motifs within this tradition? Authors may include: Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, and Eve Ewing. This course satisfies the Literatures of the Americas requirement for English majors.

Full details for ASRC 2680 - Introduction to African American Literature

This course focuses on African American and African Diaspora visual art from the 1800s to the present. It introduces significant artists and artworks as well as key movements, social, political, and economic issues, and critical discourse that mark this body of work. We will begin with an overview of African art and experiences of the Middle Passage, slavery, and colonialism that inform global blackness and our definition of diaspora. Then, we will address a range of topics central to African diasporic artmaking including representational struggle and visual capture, commodification, institutional and political critique, queered black gender and sexuality, spatial instability and reclamation. The core of the course is centered in the 20th century with a focus on painting, sculpture, installation art, performance, photography, film, and new media.

Full details for ASRC 2700 - Introduction to African American and African Diaspora Art

In his work "Black Reconstruction in America," Du Bois glosses over a key moment in American revolutionary thinking. Senator Wade of Ohio, among three Whig politicians impatient with Abraham Lincoln's acccommodationism in relation to the defeated South, proposes a certain radical policy. That is, the newly liberated slaves must be willing to act their former oppressors. Du Bois, in cursory parliamentary fashion, makes mention of Wade's radicalism but never engages it. However, in his biography of John Brown, we find Du Bois' thinking of a piece with Wade's. This course will chart the unfolding of Du Bois's critique: from his non-engagement to what we might take to be an almost full embrace of Wade's proposal through the radical actions of John Brown.

Full details for ASRC 3029 - Revolutionary John Brown: As Figured by W.E.B. Du Bois

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

Immanuel Levinas is known as a thinker whose work turns on the relation to the other. Specifically, Levinas is synonymous with the concept of the face-to-face. That is, in a Levinasian word, if I look on the face of the other I am much less likely to do violence to the other. This course, taking its cue from Levinas' "Difficult Freedom," demonstrates the circumscription of that Levinasian concept. The particular universal, this course will show, is limited by Levinas, in the moment of philosophical truth, to those whom he assigns the designation "particular universal." This course will account for why it is Levinas' other is a figure circumscribed by identitarian proclivities. As such, it will ask why it is Levinas excludes those whom he excludes, and, most importantly, how what raises a particular set of difficulties in relation to Levinas as renowned thinker of the ethical.

Full details for ASRC 3125 - The Unethical Levinas

This course examines compelling and complementary philosophies, pieties, and consequences of the Black Power era to the present. With an eye to the history that precedes this era, we chart the liberatory visions, evolving out of the persistent struggles and massive organizing of African Americans in the 1950s and 60s, and trace their far-reaching impact throughout the last half of the 20th century. We examine what is arguably the most significant social movement of the first quarter of the 21st century, #BlackLivesMatter Movement—particularly its aim, development, and effects, as well as its complex relationship to previous Black freedom movements and Black radicalism in general. After taking stocking, we will ask: What’s after Black Lives Matter? We also explore how the idiom of Black Power takes on spiritual meaning and translates into a Black Liberation Theology and into new Black religions like the Nation of Islam. Our aim is to keep in view the significance of the Black Power era for understanding social change and why “freedom is a constant struggle.” We will give special attention to relevant contemporary movements, debates, and issues (e.g., Cooperation Jackson, pan-Africanism, intersectionality, nationalism, the role of Black churches, politics of representation, racial capitalism, electoral politics).

Full details for ASRC 3237 - Black Power, Black Theology to After Black Lives Matter

In her pathbreaking text Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval Saidiya Hartman writes that young Black women were radical thinkers who tirelessly imagined other ways to live and never failed to consider how the world might be otherwise. This two-semester course endeavors to travel through those worlds using the cultural and musical forms of gospel and the blues as our compass. The first semester is guided by the work of scholars and writers like Angela Davis, Hazel Carby, Alice Walker, and Gayl Jones and artists like Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Together we will interrogate the spectrum of lived experiences making for a kaleidoscopic sonic history of joy, pleasure, sorrow, resistance, and everything in between. (HC)

Full details for ASRC 3322 - Gospel and The Blues: A Black Women's History I, 1900-1973

Ideas change the world. Sometimes the same ideas can do tremendous good and also cause great suffering. In this course we will consider violence and revolutionary changes through the prism of European 17th- and 18th-century Enlightenment thought. Thinking through the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Catherine Macaulay, Rousseau and others, we will explore how African philosophers and writers such as Emmanuel Eze, Paulin Hotoundji and Chinua Achebe are in conversation with the enlightenment as well as African thought.

Full details for ASRC 3340 - Race, Class, Gender and Violence in the Enlightenment

At the conclusion of World War II, the United States ushered in a new international order based on the principles of the Atlantic Charter, which became the basis for the United Nations Charter: including but not limited to the right to self-determination and global economic cooperation. All this changed when Henry Kissinger proclaimed that The whites are (in Africa) to stay and the only way that constructive change can come about is through them. There is no hope for the blacks to gain the political rights they seek through violence, which will only lead to chaos and increased opportunities for the communists. This course examines how US Foreign policy toward Africa has been formulated and executed since the Nixon years.

Full details for ASRC 3401 - The Whites are Here to Stay: US-Africa Policy from Nixon to Date

The dominant strains in Euro-American philosophy tend either to erase or underplay the participation in and contributions to the constitution of Western philosophy of philosophers from the global African world. Additionally, dominant philosophical narratives are notorious for excluding African-inflected discourses from explorations of the perennial problems of philosophy. In this class, we seek to fill this absence by spending time studying the contributions to a distinct philosophical tradition-Existentialism-by thinkers from the global African world.

Full details for ASRC 3402 - Africana Philosophy: Existentialism in Black

In 1940, with the publication of his novel Native Son, Richard Wright helped to launch the protest era in African American literature. This course focuses on the development of key fiction and nonfiction genres that have shaped the development of African American literature from the mid-20th-century to the contemporary era. Genres that we will consider include poetry, fiction, the essay, the speech, autobiography, and the novel. We will explore the main periods in this literature's development such as the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and the black women's literary renaissance of the 1970s, and consider the rise of science fiction writing. Authors who will be considered include Richard Wright, Ann Petry, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ishmael Reed, and August Wilson. We will also incorporate discussion of works in film and art that have been the outgrowth of writing from African American authors. The course will include screenings of scenes from the class film A Raisin in the Sun, along with the films Dutchman and Beloved.

Full details for ASRC 3508 - African American Literature: 1930s-present

This seminar brings together work in critical black studies and psychoanalysis with recent black art histories to examine black abstraction and conceptualism. Blackness can be understood as a concept made material through the violence of racialization. This concept is endlessly mutable and variously signifies a wide range of psychoaffective phenomena associated with difference, Otherness, abjection, dependency, and much more. We will track the permutations of black conceptualism through conceptual art and visual abstraction, investigating the pressure blackness places on the assumptive logics of conceptual art as well as the potential the genre holds for understanding black being differently. Artists and thinkers will include: Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, W.E.B. DuBois, Huey Copeland, Hortense Spillers, David Marriott, Senga Nengudi, Steve McQueen, Cameron Rowland, Robert Morris, Clement Greenberg.

Full details for ASRC 4515 - Black Abstraction and Conceptual Art

Black Feminism is an umbrella term that describes a range of social/political practices and theories that are historically rooted in and extrapolated from the embodied experiences of Black women. In this course we will investigate a variety of foundational and contemporary texts within the Black feminist intellectual archive. Questions we will consider: What makes someone or something (i.e. an action or practice) Black Feminist? What is Black Feminism’s purpose?

Full details for ASRC 4526 - Black Feminism: Practice and Purpose

How has history shaped our notion of Black girlhood? What is our collective understanding of Black girlhood? How do we see and understand Black girls? Black Girlhood Studies is a multidisciplinary field that draws on education, literature, psychological, and sociological perspectives as tools to see and honor Black girls' lived experiences. In this seminar course, we will use a mixture of lectures and facilitated discussions to provide an overview of Black girlhood as it relates to historical and current-day social, political, and cultural constructions of Black girlhood within and beyond the United States. We will also interrogate how Black girls deconstruct and interrupt these social constructions by engaging in scholarly works, popular press articles, poetry, music, film, and novels. Throughout the course, we will make space to imagine a world where Black girls' ways of knowing, being, and experiencing the world are honored.

Full details for ASRC 4561 - Black Girlhood Studies: Rememory, Representation, and Re-Imagination

In this course, we shall be looking at the he said, she said of colonial/anti-colonial literature. In particular we shall look at texts where European and African authors have been in direct conversation, with the hope of developing a deeper understanding of what was at stake in the colonial projects, and how both the colonizer and colonized understood colonization and resistance – and the contradictions in inherent in each. Looking at the works of Mannoni, Fanon, Nawal El Saadawi, Micere Mugo, Chinua Achebe, Joseph Conrad, and others, we shall try to paint a picture that engages the voices and vulnerabilities of both lion and hunter.

Full details for ASRC 4570 - Africa Writes Back: Colonizer and the Colonized

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 where they were active, with an identity independent of men's; in they were not clustered in a private sphere of the home while men controlled the public sphere. This course examines critical gender theories and African women in historical and contemporary periods. The topics covered include: women in non-westernized/pre-colonial societies; the impact and legacy of colonial policies; access to education and knowledge; political and economic participation 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, post-Beijing meetings, 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

Race is but one of many ways that we classify ourselves and others as we navigate the world. But what role has science, technology, and medicine played in shaping our understanding of race as both a concept and aspect of our personal identity? This course investigates how ideas about race have been constructed and deployed at various scales in both social and scientific contexts. Students will trace the historical production of racial meaning from the 18th century to the present, exploring topics such as: individual projects of racial self-fashioning, national projects of technological racial surveillance, and even global networks of genomic data. Rather than focusing solely on scientific authority, this course will underscore how marginalized communities have challenged scientific scrutiny and engaged as co-producers of racial knowledge.

Full details for ASRC 4712 - Scaling Race: Race-Making in Science in Society

For senior Africana Studies majors working on an honors thesis, 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

In his work "Black Reconstruction in AMerica," Du Bois glosses over a key moment in American revolutionary thinking. Senator Wade of Ohio, among three Whig politicians impatient with Abraham Lincoln's acccommodationism in relation to the defeated South, proposes a certain radical policy. That is, the newly liberated slaves must be willing to act their former oppressors. Du Bois, in cursory parliamentary fashion, makes mention of Wade's radicalism but never engages it. However, in his biography of John Brown, we find Du Bois' thinking of a piece with Wade's. This course will chart the unfolding of Du Bois's critique: from his non-engagement to what we might take to be an almost full embrace of Wade's proposal through the radical actions of John Brown.

Full details for ASRC 6029 - Revolutionary John Brown: As Figured by W.E.B. Du Bois

Immanuel Levinas is known as a thinker whose work turns on the relation to the other. Specifically, Levinas is synonymous with the concept of the face-to-face. That is, in a Levinasian word, if I look on the face of the other I am much less likely to do violence to the other. This course, taking its cue from Levinas' "Difficult Freedom," demonstrates the circumscription of that Levinasian concept. The particular universal, this course will show, is limited by Levinas, in the moment of philosophical truth, to those whom he assigns the designation "particular universal." This course will account for why it is Levinas' other is a figure circumscribed by identitarian proclivities. As such, it will ask why it is Levinas excludes those whom he excludes, and, most importantly, how what raises a particular set of difficulties in relation to Levinas as renowned thinker of the ethical.

Full details for ASRC 6125 - The Unethical Levinas

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 philosophical filaments 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 African 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 seminar brings together work in critical black studies and psychoanalysis with recent black art histories to examine black abstraction and conceptualism. Blackness can be understood as a concept made material through the violence of racialization. This concept is endlessly mutable and variously signifies a wide range of psychoaffective phenomena associated with difference, Otherness, abjection, dependency, and much more. We will track the permutations of black conceptualism through conceptual art and visual abstraction, investigating the pressure blackness places on the assumptive logics of conceptual art as well as the potential the genre holds for understanding black being differently. Artists and thinkers will include: Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, W.E.B. DuBois, Huey Copeland, Hortense Spillers, David Marriott, Senga Nengudi, Steve McQueen, Cameron Rowland, Robert Morris, Clement Greenberg.

Full details for ASRC 6506 - Black Abstraction and Conceptual Art

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 where they were active, with an identity independent of men's; in they were not clustered in a private sphere of the home while men controlled the public sphere. This course examines critical gender theories and African women in historical and contemporary periods. The topics covered include: women in non-westernized/pre-colonial societies; the impact and legacy of colonial policies; access to education and knowledge; political and economic participation 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, post-Beijing meetings, 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 6602 - Women and Gender Issues in Africa

Race is but one of many ways that we classify ourselves and others as we navigate the world. But what role has science, technology, and medicine played in shaping our understanding of race as both a concept and aspect of our personal identity? This course investigates how ideas about race have been constructed and deployed at various scales in both social and scientific contexts. Students will trace the historical production of racial meaning from the 18th century to the present, exploring topics such as: individual projects of racial self-fashioning, national projects of technological racial surveillance, and even global networks of genomic data. Rather than focusing solely on scientific authority, this course will underscore how marginalized communities have challenged scientific scrutiny and engaged as co-producers of racial knowledge.

Full details for ASRC 6712 - Scaling Race: Race-Making in Science in Society

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

This class is the second 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 6903 - Africana Studies Graduate Seminar

Elementary Swahili provides a foundation in listening, speaking, reading, and writing the basic grammatical structures and vocabulary. 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

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

Topics vary by semester in relation to student needs.

Full details for SWAHL 5509 - Graduate Studies in Swahili

This course is a continuation of the basic introductory Wolof course. It aims to build students' basic understanding of the sentence structure of the language. It combines written and oral practice based on major cultural aspects of traditional and modern Wolof society.

Full details for WOLOF 1118 - Elementary Wolof II

This course will further your awareness and understanding of the Wolof language and culture, as well as improve your mastery of grammar, writing skills, and oral skills. Course materials will incorporate various types of text including tales, cartoons, as well as multimedia such as films, videos, and audio recordings.

Full details for WOLOF 2119 - Intermediate Wolof II

As a continuation of WOLOF 3113, this course will continue to expand your knowledge of the Wolof language and culture. It will enhance your command of complex grammar, written forms, and oral expression. Course materials will incorporate various text types, including tales, poetry, literature, and multimedia, such as television and radio. At the end of the course, you will present an analysis of an authentic oral or written text to an audience, formulate a position surrounding the text, and respond spontaneously to questions.

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

Development of communication skills through dialogues and role play. Texts and songs are drawn from traditional and popular literature. Students research daily life in selected areas of South Africa.

Full details for ZULU 1116 - Elementary Zulu II

Students read longer texts from popular media as well as myths and folktales. Prepares students for initial research involving interaction with speakers of isiZulu in South Africa and for the study of oral and literary genres.

Full details for ZULU 2117 - Intermediate Zulu II

Readings may include short stories, a novel, praise poetry, historical texts, or contemporary political speeches, depending on student interests. Study of issues of language policy and use in contemporary South Africa; introduction to the Soweto dialect of isiZulu. Students are prepared for extended research in South Africa involving interviews with isiZulu speakers.

Full details for ZULU 3114 - Advanced Zulu II