Introduction to African-American History: Key concepts from 1700-1861 (212-1-1)

Instructors

Sylvester Johnson
847/467-5410
5-128 Crowe, 1860 Campus Dr
Office Hours: Tuesday 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm and by appontment

Meeting Info

Lunt Hall 105: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This undergraduate course traces the making of the African Diaspora from West and Central African empires to the U.S. Civil War in 1865. We study the early period of African American history through a global, transnational lens. Rather than treating enslaved and free Black people merely as subjects of empire and slavery, the course takes seriously how African-descended peoples actively shaped the modern Atlantic world through acts of political revolution, religious formation, cultural creation, technology development, and economic innovation. Starting with cultural and economic systems in West-Central Africa, then moving to Caribbean and Southern underground markets, we explore maritime networks, patent battles, and early mutual-aid financial institutions. The course examines how Black technological mastery and entrepreneurial agency intersected with human trafficking, regimes of slavery, and formations of gender, kinship, and freedom struggles across the Americas.

The course is designed as an interactive "historical lab" requiring no prerequisites. It employs a "flipped" approach for active learning, features brief lectures, and structures generous attention to collaboratively workshopping primary sources so that students learn to explore and explain complex dimensions of history and culture.

This course also equips students with skills in the responsible use of generative AI to support discovery of expert sources, rigorous analysis of evidence, critical thinking, and intellectual argument based on primary sources and analysis.

Learning Objectives

• Identify, analyze, and evaluation cultural, economic, and political formations of African Atlantic societies
• Examine and assess economic practices of free and enslaved African-descended peoples in North America
• Situate North American freedom struggles within global, transnational contexts
• Locate, interrogate, and explain primary sources as evidence for understanding historical developments in African American life
• Understand and employ generative AI and other digital tools to locate expert sources, discover and/or translate/transcribe primary sources, and identify trends in scholarly debates about African American history

Class Materials (Required)

N/A

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
SoC Individual and Social Behavior Distro

Associated Classes

DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-319: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM

DIS - Fisk Hall 114: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM

DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM