Historical and sociopolitical materials. Approaches to studying the African American experience, antecedents from African past, and special problems.

Exploration of a topic (to be determined) not covered by the standard curriculum but of interest to faculty and students in a particular semester.

Students develop analytic and writing skills by engaging diverse topics and media that have shaped African American print, visual, and sound cultural production.

Issues of self determination and emancipation in region. From the period of the invasions of explorers after the European renaissance to the present.

This course surveys the origins and evolution of African American music. It examines how dynamics of power, race, and gender inform the creation, circulation, and performance of this music.

Survey music from Morocco to South Africa using diverse media to illuminate this vast area. The concentration will be on the lifestyle of the people who create music.

A survey of African history from ancient times to 1800. Focuses on political, social, economic, and environmental history of the continent. Themes: state formation, technology, production, trade, religion, migration, labor, slave trade, and biological exchanges.

A survey of modern African history since 1800. Themes include nineteenth-century western images of Africa, pre-colonial changes, Western Imperialism, African anti-imperialism, colonial economic and social transformation, nationalism, cold war, decolonization, post colonial developments and changes.

The course introduces African American literature extending from Africa to the Americas and spanning slavery, Reconstruction, and the era of Racial Uplift. It includes autobiography, fiction, and poetry by such authors as Wheatley, Douglass, Jacobs, Webb, Hopkins, Dunbar, Chesnutt, and Du Bois.

This survey of contemporary African American literature extends from the New Negro Renaissance to Afrofuturism. The exploration of aesthetics, cultural production, and politics of Black writing includes such authors as Fauset, McKay, Larsen, West, Hurston, Ellison, Baldwin, Bambara, and Morrison.

Fiction in English and translation by writers from Caribbean areas, and Brazil. Historical, social, and cultural factors. Representations and concepts of gender, home, and migration. Barrett, Conde, Hodge, James, Lamming, Marshall, Roumain.

Fiction in English and translation by contemporary novelists from Africa. Thematic and conceptual approaches underscore the literary force of language and creativity. Social and literary dynamics of books and related films. Achebe, Adichie, Aidoo, Ba, Dadie, Diop, Head, Ngugi, Sembene.

African American drama from inception to present. Includes the works of playwrights such as Brown, Grimke, Hughes, Hansberry, Baldwin, Baraka, Ward, Fuller, and Wilson.

Historical and comparative study of religious practice in Africa. Diversity of traditional beliefs, developments in Christianity and Islam, and political significance of religious identity and practice. African influence on western religious practices.

Variety of ethnic communities in American society. Comparative analysis of similarities and uniqueness. Issues of group conflict, diversity, and unity.

Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the S.U. academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.

In-depth exploration of a problem or problems. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor or instructors and the department.

Exploration of a topic (to be determined) not covered by the standard curriculum but of interest to faculty and students in a particular semester.

Themes, images, and aesthetics of contemporary African theater examined through works of contemporary Black playwrights, scholars, and critics. Includes behind-the-scenes study of an African American theater production.

Literature and scholarship by Black women writers. Analytical reading, writing and discussion of various topics, stylistic questions, strategies generated in autobiography, fiction, drama, poetry, speeches and scholarship: 1960's to present, and earlier times. Bambara, Davis, Hurston, Jones, Lorde, Morrison, Williams.

How text of play by Black writer is realized in an on stage production. Introduction to aspects of production (costuming, lighting, sound) and study of play selected and related materials. Production experience by work on full stage production.

Theory and practice of African orature. Exploration of ethics and aesthetics through study of main genres, selected texts, and film. Discourse on application and linkages with Caribbean and African American orature forms.

Introduction to the African American experience in the American political system, from the colonial period to the present. Organization/leadership, federal institutions/relations, sociopolitical movements, and electoral politics.

Literature in English and translation by African women writing from a variety of cultural stances and geographic locations in Africa, Europe and North America. Writing styles and creative modes of expression used by African women writers to convey and envision the life of their work. Adichie, Aidoo, Dangaremba, El Sadaawi, Liking, Mbye d'Ernville, Tadjo.

To introduce students to the reality of how institutional racism informs the "common sense" understanding of what is known as Black sexuality.

A practical look at various steps of production, while accessing factors which contribute to successful theater.

Impact of Pan African thought and action in the 20th century. Focus on social movements and ideas reflected in the Pan African movement in the continent and the African diaspora.

Begins before arrival of Europeans in southern Africa. Economic, geographic, sociological, and political factors contributing to development of this unique, racially based modern state. Includes Afrikaaner diaspora, Euro-African conflict during the nineteenth century, Anglo-Boer War, from union to apartheid, and resistance to European domination.

Novelists such as Hughes, Larsen, Hurston, Toomer, Wright, Baldwin, Ellison, Gaines, Morrison, Walker, Briscoe, and Clarke will be included. The place of these authors in African American fiction in particular and American fiction in general will be analyzed.

Cultural, economic, political, and social developments shaping experiences of North Americans of African descent. Foundations of collective identity and diversity. African American historiography. Interpretive and methodological issues in historical practice.

Continuation of AAS/HST 332.

Poetry and prose workshop. Students exposed to techniques of craftsmanship, use of meditation to expand the visionary experience, and aesthetic sensibilities that involve African American culture.

Historical foundations of the move towards political freedom, democracy and self rule in Africa. Dynamics of the political process.

Historical significance of religion for Americans of African descent. African and western forces shaping religious identity. Religious practices, beliefs, organizations, imagery, literature, theories, and activism. Historical perspectives on meanings of religion.

Examines thematically and comparatively the political systems of South America, Asia, and Africa, exploring topics such as colonization, decolonization, nation-building, the postcolonial state and its institutions, the recent wave of democratization, and the challenges of socioeconomic development.

Theory and research of African American sociologists in the historical, social, and political context of American sociology. Relation of their work to the African American experience and its reception and impact in the public policy arena.

Arts of the African Diaspora. Emphasis on African American Art. Seventeenth century to present. Gender, socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts. Artistic implications of Black culture in comparative perspective with other artists and artistic movements.

The place of Africans in the international system; specific issues emanating from the decolonization process. Issues of militarism, humanitarianism, peacekeeping, and genocide; challenges of globalization.

Political and economic problems developing countries face in international economic relations, attempts to solve them. Discusses the making of the international system, the "third world," globalization, trade, debt, multinational corporations, multilateral lending agencies (IMF, World Bank).

Influences, trends, and social significance of selected fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, cinema, and musical expression and philosophies that were designed to re-inforce or effect social change for blacks from the early republic to the present.

Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the S.U. academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.

This seminar critically examines key issues, assumptions, and debates in contemporary, post-civil rights Black Feminist thought, action, and behavior. As such, we will understand that Black Feminism is global and diasporic. We will begin with a survey and broad analysis of Black Feminist history and origins.

Exploration of a problem, or problems, in depth. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor(s) and the department.

Exploration of a topic (to be determined) not covered by the standard curriculum but of interest to faculty and students in a particular semester.

Conduct research that explores cultural, historical, intellectual, political, religious, or social experiences, identities, and/or practices of people of African descent. Explore methodological, ethical, and political factors that have shaped interdisciplinary research in African American Studies.

Evolution and diverse character of North American slavery and antislavery. Slavery as labor, legal, and property system, cultural and political phenomenon, and social and economic network. Politics and ethics of abolition.

Comparative approaches and trans-Atlantic analysis of literature by women writers from Africa and the Caribbean. Representations and constructions of social, political, and cultural life in colonial, neo-colonial, and contemporary contexts. Writers such as Ba, Brodber, Dangaremba, Marshall, Head, Dandicat, Nwapa.

Various masters of African American music and how these masters brought beauty and happiness to the common place.

We will study how creative practices and writings of African American jazz improvisers and composers engage the definitions, production, distribution, and reception of music. Reading critical jazz scholarship and deep listening to recordings will be required. Additional work for graduates.

Changes in African American communities or in the circumstances of African Americans within a particular institutional arena. Movements to promote change and obstacles to change. Substantive focus varies.

We will study the creative work of Prince through critical literature called Prince Studies. Through Prince's music, we will understand how religion, race, gender, and sexuality are expressed musically.

Course explores the development of US Gulf Region to understand the disparate impacts of race, class, gender, and age inequalities resulting from Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans levees breaches, and the 2010 BP Oil Spill.

Chronicles patterns of racial residential segregation in the US by examining the methods that maintain racially distinct neighborhoods. Explores link between segregation and education, social mobility, health, and mortality.

Learn about the unique contributions African Americans have made in popular culture in the United States. Special emphasis about areas related to film, music, art, cultural expression, and social justice.

The multiple and complex relationships between race, the power to punish, and crime control policies and practice. Exploration of the theories of crime and punishment from classic to postmodern.

Advanced introductional to international human rights laws and frameworks with a focus on Latin American and Caribbean states.

This seminar will examine the complex and varied Africana athletic experiences from the playing field to the coaching ranks and front office from a critical social justice perspective intersecting race, class, gender, and international relations. Additional work required of graduate students.

This seminar will examine the complex and varied Black urban experiences in the 20th and 21st centuries from the 1890s to the present.

Historical understanding of Black women's engagement in paid domestic work in the United States, increasing need for domestic workers in the ever-changing economy and family, and the social construction of Black women as "ideal" domestic workers.

Literature, politics, and social transformations during the Harlem Renaissance and New Negro Movements. Selected writers, intellectuals and activists in relation to national and international spheres of history, creativity, influence, and experience in the U.S., Europe, African, and the Caribbean. Writers such as Ida B. Wells, DuBois, Damas, Garvey, Hughes, Nadal, West.

Myth and history of the Underground in the context of African American freedom efforts. Emphasis on events, personalities, and sites in upstate New York. Student field research and exploration of archival and Internet resources. Additional work required of graduate students.

A political economy approach to educating students about the human and capital costs of tourism to the Caribbean. The integral relationship between sex work and Caribbean tourism exposes the region's development that has resulted in its current configuration.

Examining images of African Americans in feature length films, beginning with the invention of the moving image to the present day. Comparisons with artistic images are grounded in gender, socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts.

Supervised internship with a local community agency.

Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the S.U. academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.

In-depth exploration of a problem or problems.  Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor or instructors and the department.

Completion of an Honors Capstone Project under the supervision of a faculty member.

Interdisciplinary seminar examining various areas of intellectual and research interests related to the American black experience. Integrates knowledge of historical, cultural, sociological, political, and economic issues. Prereq: lower-division course in the social sciences.

Intellectual traditions and histories of African American sociologists between 1900 and 1945. Understanding the nature of their contributions to various strands of American and Pan African social thought. Impacts on public policy.

Baldwin, "Bricktop", Cesaire, Conde, Diop, Himes, and Wright. Jazz, Negritude, and Presence Africaine. Literature, films, concepts, and contemporary issues involving: expatriation, colonialism, racism, and immigration; and places such as the Café Tournon, Belleville, the Louvre, and University of Paris.

Particular periods or aspects of African American history.

This music-centered course explores the relationship between the Black intellectual traditions of musicians and their musical practices. Critical musicology, Black feminist theory, and critical race theory help illuminate the link between African American music and quotidian life. 

The intellectual, political, and social history of African American women from pre-colonial Africa to the re-emergence of black feminism in the late 20th-century United States.

A multi-dimensional study of Morrison's bookwork: fiction, non-fiction, and scholarship. Involves conceptual frameworks and ideas that link this project with broader understandings and interpretations of Blacks in the world. A wide range of questions (i.e., aesthetics, feminisms, knowing-politics, language, race) derives from Morrison's literary witnessing of Black community life.

Conceptual, technical, and ethical tools for research among populations in the African Diaspora. Guidelines and practice in reviewing literature and assessing historiography data gathering and analysis, interviewing, participant observation, and archival research.

Various areas of intellectual and research interests related to the American black experience. Integrates knowledge of historical, cultural, sociological, political, and economic issues.

Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the S.U. academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.

Exploration of a problem, or problems, in depth. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor(s) and the department.