Introduction to African-American Studies (236-0-20)
Instructors
Kennetta Hammond Perry
Meeting Info
University Hall 218: Mon, Wed 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
This course surveys major concepts, methodologies and issues of academic debate that have shaped the field of Black Studies in the U.S academy. The course is comprised of three modules. In the first module students will be introduced to the history of the development of the field of Black Studies and its connections to longstanding struggles for self-possessed Black educational spaces, diasporic and transnational movements shaped by Black intellectuals interrogating structures of power and disempowerment, as well as pedagogic practices regarding education as a political resource for social change. With a grounding in some of the broad historical currents shaping the history of the field and people of African descent in the Americas and across the African Diaspora, in Module II, students will be introduced to foundational concepts and intellectual frameworks that have shaped the field and continue to animate critical debates in Black Studies. In the final module, students will actively engage a host of contemporary issues shaping cutting-edge research in the field including work on environmental and climate justice, abolitionist world-making, social-movement building in the digital age, queer Black life on screen, and race and medicine. In doing so, students will encounter the complexities of Black life and its discontents and the dynamic nature of the histories and cultures of populations of the Black Diaspora.
Learning Objectives
• explain the development and role of AFAM in the U.S. academy
• understand some of the foundational concepts and theoretical frameworks shaping the field of AFAM
• understand and develop a critical awareness about the role that race and ideas about Blackness have played in shaping the histories, cultures and identities of people of African descent in various parts of the world
• develop a transnational view of Black histories, cultures, communities and identities
• develop a more expansive vocabulary for discussing contemporary racial politics
• develop critical thinking and analytical writing skills
Class Materials (Required)
W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk (any edition)
Class Attributes
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Social and Behavioral Science Foundational Discipl
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area