Graduate Topics in African American Studies (480-0-21)

Topic

Pan Africanism and Black Internationalism

Instructors

Martha Biondi

Meeting Info

Harris Hall L04: Mon 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This graduate seminar examines scholarship on events, movements, and/or initiatives that mobilized people of African descent across borders. While Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism are overlapping terms, Pan-Africanism frequently emphasizes the unity and solidarity among African nations and the diaspora, and Black internationalism connects these struggles to broader global anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movements. Initially an idea and movement that took root among the African Diaspora, Pan-Africanism has also been embraced on the continent, as a strategy to surmount colonialism and its afterlives. We explore how ideological commitments, gender, class and national origin have shaped various initiatives across time. While this global organizing and consciousness has deep historical roots, with the Haitian revolution as a notable flashpoint, this course will mostly focus on the 20th century.

Class Materials (Required)

Readings may include:
Reena Goldthree, Democracy's Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean


Minkah Makalani, In the Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism from Harlem to London, 1917-1939

Leslie James, The Moving Word: How the West African and Caribbean Press Shaped Black Political Thought, 1935-1960

Russell Rickford, A Proxy Africa: Guyana, African Americans and the Radical 1970s
Martha Biondi, We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: PRE-REG: Reserved for Black Studies majors & minors.