| source Northwestern (X) |
level |
department AF_AM_ST African American Studies (X) |
This course will offer an overview of the African American experience, starting in early modern Africa and extending to the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Major themes addressed in the course include a brief introduction to African history; the development of chattel slavery in the Americas, including the Middle Passage and the legal structures of the institution; forms of resistance to slavery by slaves and free Blacks alike; the growth of African American cultural institutions in slavery and freedom; and the Black critique of American Âdemocracy, culminating in the Civil War. Special attention will be given to the role of Black religion in shaping communities and forms of struggle, and to the role of women in community development and activism.
Score: 12.3873 Details | Listing | Web page
While the African diaspora is generally associated with the history of the Americas, recent years have seen the proliferation of African descended communities in Europe due to the aftermath of colonialism and various forms migration. This course will introduce students to the cultural productions of Afro-diasporic groups in Britain and Germany. We will begin the course with some theoretical and historical readings about the emergence of these communities within their respective national cultures as well as their transnational conversations with other Afro-diasporic groups. Then we will discuss recent films, novels, and autobiographies in order to understand both the commonalities shared and differences between these diasporic formations.
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From Lucy Terrys poem Bars Fight (1746)--the first known African American literary product to the present--black women have directly and indirectly influenced African American literary production. This course will be an intensive, multi-genred examination of the ways in which writers such as Toni Morrison and Terri McMillan; Lorraine Hansberry and Suzan-Lori Parks; Frances E.W. Harper and Danzy Senna; Toni Cade Bambara and ZZ Packer have directed the trajectories of African American literature. In addition, we will consider the factors and figures influential in the reception of their works.
Score: 12.3873 Details | Listing | Web page
This course examines contemporary marriage and family patterns in the United States with a special emphasis on African American marriage and family structures. While the focus is on American society, marriage and family relationships in other countries will also be explored. The family is the oldest institution found in all human societies in some form or other. However, family structures have dramatically changed throughout history. This course will examine the causes and implications of these changes on relationship choices in the twenty-first century from sociological, historical, and psychological perspectives.
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This graduate level course explores the status of memory as an object of investigation in critical theory and as a contested form of social, cultural, and political practice. It analyzes why social practices of remembering and forgetting particularly arise in the context of colonial and postcolonial developments; additionally, it examines the salience of memory/forgetting to the constitution and maintenance of diasporas. Along with theoretical and methodological readings, case studies will be drawn primarily from literatures of Atlantic slavery and the Jewish holocaust.
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The objective of this reading seminar is to uncover a more inclusive history by examining Black women, individually and collectively, locally and in Diaspora, in all their rich diversity, from the era of slavery through the modern eraÂs ongoing quest for human rights and dignity for all. To counter prevailing assumptions and constructions of the monolithic Black woman, the course interrogates and challenges definitions of Black women by probing categories of difference, including, ethnicity, religion, class, sexuality, migrant/immigrant status.
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The 1950s and 1960s were marked by the confluence of numerous trends in American society that helped bring the issue of Black equality into the national consciousness. This course will examine the phenomenon known as the "Civil Rights Movement" from a number of different perspectives. Included in this class will be an overview of the origins of the movement from the 1920s through the 1940s; the impact of national trends, ranging from the Cold War to the development of television, on the course and development of the movement; the local, regional, national, and international dimensions of the overall movement; tensions over ideology and identity (especially gender, class, and sexuality) within the movement; and the variety of political critiques of American society offered by the Civil Rights Movement and its constituents. Particular emphasis will be given to the impact of the movement on contemporary American politics; the relationship between the movement and the federal government; and the Cold War context in which it grew.
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This course will introduce students to the significant social, political and cultural debates that have been shaped by the history, thought, movements and identifications of African Americans since the late 19th century. It will discuss how these debates continue to influence the contestation of contemporary cultural representations of African Americans. Emphasising in the context of the socio-economic and political issues largely emanating from the experience of 20th century, the course aims to examine the ways in which understanding African American movements, intellectuals, events, political thought and cultural practices can provide unique and important insights into the social meaning of the United States. In particular the course will focus on African American debates concerning the roles of politics, culture, race and gender in defining the terms in which social resistance and social progress can be understood as having a particular relevance.
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Despite popular assumptions of the Âassimilation of immigrants, the Âextinction of indigenous peoples, and the emergence of a Âcolor-blind society, race continues to shape many aspects of our lives. It often determines the neighborhoods in which we live, the jobs open to us, the kinds of education we receive, our access to healthcare, and even the quality of air that we breathe. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the basic social and theoretical issues in the field of 20th century race and ethnic relations. We will focus on the emergence and persistence of racial stratification in areas of the U.S. legal system, health and medicine, the environment, popular media, and military conflict. Special attention will be paid to how racially aggrieved communities have resisted inequality through cultural production, grass roots organizing, and revolutionary struggle. While the experiences of all racial and ethnic groups will be examined, this course will focus primarily on the history and plights of nationÂs two largest groups of color, Latinos/as and African Americans.
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This seminar will focus on the impact that Toni Morrison has had on American arts and letters through her roles as editor, author and public scholar. As an editor, Morrison single-handedly ensured the publication of significant contemporary African American texts. Morrison the author continues to create a canon that centers on and celebrates the complexities of African American life. As a public scholar, Morrison scrutinizes the ways in which the American literary canon fails to acknowledge the cultural contributions of African Americans. Works will include most of Morrison's novels in addition to other short readings.
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The end of World War I ushered in an era where many artists and intelligencia were attempting to emancipate and destroy the ideologies of Victorianism and view their society with the stark and brutal truth. While the United States was attempting to liberate itself from the dominance of European culture during the 1920s, African Americans were also attempting to culturally define themselves. The failure of the Reconstruction coupled with the guise of limitless Northern opportunity and equality, sparked the movement known as the Great Migration--where hundreds of thousands of Southern African Americans relocated to the major cities of the North. In fact, much of New York's cultural dominance in the 1920s was directly linked to Harlem being the chief mecca to the multitudes of emigrating Southern African Americans. Harlem did not become the "Harlem" that we currently recognize it to be until the 1920s when it became the African American metropolis. This seminar will be an intensive study of the literature, music and visual art produced during the Harlem Renaissance. We will explore the philosophical and cultural critiques offered by the African American intelligencia of the period as well. This course will introduce all of the major male figures of the Harlem Renaissance; DuBois, Locke, Johnson, Garvey, Hughes, Cullen, McKay, Toomer, Schuyler, Fisher and others. However, an equal part of the seminar will focus on the rich tradition of artistic production left by the women of the Harlem Renaissance; Hurston, Larsen, Fauset, and other lesser known, obscure female writers, poets and artists. The main objective of this course will be to provide a clear understanding of how these artists established a personal and collective identity based on the explorations and expressions of their cultural lineage.
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Given the historical and cultural isolation that black women have experienced vis a vis mainstream political institutions the focus on political effects easily makes the Âpolitics of Black women invisible . For those that exist within political structures the analysis of Black womenÂs politics continue to be under theorized and unexamined. This course interrogates the ways in which Black women create, operate and define their own politics. Attention will be devoted to conceptualizing the ÂpoliticalÂ. We will consider the relationships between structures of power (ex, formal and informal political institutions) on the everyday practices, strategies, and worldview of Black women. The course will survey Black womenÂs participation in social movements. The intersections of race, gender, and sexuality with a focus on the African diaspora will be examined to address Black womenÂs social and political lives.
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This course will comparatively examine the ways that formerly colonized peoples engage in the process of de-colonization, a process through which subaltern peoples counter the cultural hegemony of European colonial powers, disinvest in whiteness, and aim to recapture the historical memory and traditions of African and Amerindian progenitors as a method of political mobilization. Of central focus will be anti-colonial struggles in Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
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In the summer of 2004, Mayor Richard Daley announced that 100 new public schools would open in Chicago by the year 2010. This ambitious plan, called Renaissance 2010, has been met with praise and criticism. This course will examine the plan, the people and the possibilities surrounding the creation of these new schools. Players in the development of Chicago's new schools will serve as guest speakers for the class, thereby giving students an opportunity to hear first-hand from the people behind the policies. Students will learn about Chicago's existing new schools (with a focus on Charter schools) by visiting those schools and meeting their leaders. Students will also have the opportunity to be a part of the development of an innovative new school network in Chicago aimed at serving urban young men. The broader context of the course will include considerations of community and race¬, specifically African-Americans¬ as the majority of students in Chicago Public Schools are African-American.
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The goal of this course is to explore critical texts and critical interpretations representing and reflecting the rich history and traditions of African American culture in the United States. Students are encouraged to come together as a community and engage in thoughtful discussions that examine literary genres, historical periods, sports, cultural performance, and ethnography. Course materials will focus on novels, short stories, theatre and photography. Carries social science credit.
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This class will explore the evolution of African American literature from the turn of the twentieth century through the turn of the twenty-first. We will read and consider several genres within the African American literary tradition: fiction, poetry, non-fiction prose, drama, and spoken word with the goal of developing an understanding of what the major political, social, and aesthetic concerns were for African Americans during the twentieth century. Central to this course, and to understanding and engaging the literature, will be a critical appreciation of the historical moments that surround the writing. We will look closely at how twentieth-century African American writers fashioned themselves in the world and how such fashioning reflected their conceptualization of selfhood and identity.
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This course examines the African American experience from the end of legal slavery in 1865 through the dawn of the modern Civil Rights Movement in 1954. Major themes include an assessment of the successes and failures of Reconstruction; the rise of Jim Crow segregation, disenfranchisement, and lynching in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; the impact of migration and urbanization on Black communities; the growth of the arts and cultural institutions in the 1920s and 1930s; and the Great Depression and World War II as catalysts for Black activism. Special attention will be given to the various responses of Black leadership to discrimination and African American perspectives on American foreign policy from the 1930s onward.
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This course considers the meaning of Black representations as modern political, social and cultural phenomena that transcend a single nation, circulating transnationally, marking the contours of what has become known as the Black or African Diaspora. In particular it discusses the ethnographic differences and conceptual meanings associated with three exemplars of Black representation: Black Bodies, Black Movements and Black Geographies. These are examined in relation to the contested dimensions of modernity/coloniality and race/gender. Taking as its historical point of departure the period from the late 19th century to the end of the 20th century, it considers what might be a comparative national framework for analysing the Black/African Diaspora, which avoids treating a single nation (e.g. the United States) as the privileged site of Black representation. Consequently it emphasises the transnational constitution and circulation of Black representations as the dominant defining logic of Diaspora.
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In this class we ask: How does hip hop encapsulate and contend with some of the critical racial and gender issues that exist within and are framed by American culture at large? In this comparative course, students will engage with a gendered analysis of American popular culture by focusing on the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality in hip hop. We will apply theories from racial, gender and cultural studies to their analyses of the production and consumption of popular culture. Particular attention will be paid to: the racialized construction of masculinity and femininity in popular culture; the appropriation of racial and gender identities; the role of capitalism and the market in the production of American popular culture. Specific topics include: the appropriation of Black racial and sexual identities by non-Black consumers of hip hop; misogyny and the potential for feminist hip hop; and the political potential of hip hop for understanding "difference."
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Structured around the phenomenon of travelactual, virtual, or imaginativethis course will use novels, film, and folktales, as well as dramatic texts and theoretical readings on tourism and museum displays, in order to explore the ways in Americans remember slavery, integral to the constitution of the New World. Given the recent presidential election, we will necessarily grapple with the questions such as: Why bother to remember slavery now? Or, how should slavery be remembered, as the nation seeks to chart new directions?
Score: 12.3873 Details | Listing | Web page
From Lucy Terrys poem Bars Fight (1746)--the first known African American literary product to the present--black women have directly and indirectly influenced African American literary production. This course will be an intensive, multi-genred examination of the ways in which writers such as Toni Morrison and Terri McMillan; Lorraine Hansberry and Suzan-Lori Parks; Frances E.W. Harper and Danzy Senna; Toni Cade Bambara and ZZ Packer have directed the trajectories of African American literature. In addition, we will consider the factors and figures influential in the reception of their works.
Score: 12.3873 Details | Listing | Web page
This course will introduce students to the films and videos produced by self-identified black lesbians. Students will explore the work of independent filmmakers as well as commercially successful artists, such as Cheryl Dunye, Michelle Parkerson, Dee Rees, Hanifah Walidah, Yvonne Welbon, Tiona M., and Campbell. In addition to the films, the course will introduce students to major concepts and thinkers in Black queer theory. Weekly screenings are required.
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This is a reading/discussion based seminar that comparatively examines colonial spaces and relationships across the globe. Its central goals are twofold: 1) to enhance our understanding of the unique role that race has played in structuring lives, space, identities, and relations of power in modern social formations, and 2) to facilitate a dialogue about how African American history and politics fits into a broader schema of colonial, de-colonial, and post-colonial discourses. Potential geographic areas of foci are: India, Mexico, Pakistan, the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, Brazil, Iraq, Haiti, South America, Palestine, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, Kenya, Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bisau), and Africa. Potential assigned authors are: Michael Taussig, Aime Cesaire, Walter Mignolo, Huey P. Newton, Peter Fitzpatrick, W.E.B. Dubois, Homi Bhabha, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Emma Pérez, Edward Said, Tzvetan Todorov, Haunani Kay Trask, Michel-Rolf Trouillot, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Tariq Ali, Walter Rodney, Amilcar Cabral, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'oi, Robert J.C. Young, and Peter Hallward
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There has been long-standing concern in American society about the plight of the poor. Policy and public opinion reflect various sides of the debate, resulting in programs and discourses that embody a constant tension between the desire to meet the basic needs of the poor and the fear of overextending the hand of the state. At the same time, while the majority of the poor do not come from any particular minority group, the disproportionate representation of families of color among the countrys impoverished does raise important questions. In this freshman seminar, students will develop an in-depth understanding of the scope of poverty in America and consider competing theories on its causes. Students will also read work that examines the role of racial stratification in the creation and perpetuation of economic marginalization and reflect on its present day incarnations. Both scholarly work and examples from recent events (e.g., Hurricane Katrina, the HBO television program /The Wire,/ the 2008 presidential election) will provide fodder for analysis. As students develop a keen knowledge of the historical and contemporary debates on poverty in America, we will study public policy responses to the plight of the poor from outdoor relief to present-day initiatives. The last part of the course will consider debates on the future of anti-poverty policy with special attention paid to the relationship between racial and economic stratification.
Score: 12.3873 Details | Listing | Web page
This course will offer an overview of the African American experience, starting in early modern Africa and extending to the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Major themes addressed in the course include a brief introduction to African history; the development of chattel slavery in the Americas, including the Middle Passage and the legal structures of the institution; forms of resistance to slavery by slaves and free Blacks alike; the growth of African American cultural institutions in slavery and freedom; and the Black critique of American democracy, culminating in the Civil War. Special attention will be given to the role of Black religion in shaping communities and forms of struggle, and to the role of women in community development and activism.
Score: 12.3873 Details | Listing | Web page