Courses
The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
View courses in
- All Departments
- All Departments
- African American & Black Diaspora Studies
- African Studies: Culture (in English)
- African Studies: East African Languages: Kiswahili (Swahili)
- African Studies: East, West & South African Languages: Amharic, Igbo, Mandinka, isiZulu
- African Studies: South African Languages: isiXhosa
- African Studies: West African Languages: Akan Twi, Wolof
- American Studies
- Anthropology
- Arabic: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Archaeology
- Astronomy
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Chinese: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Cinema & Media Studies
- Classical Studies: incl. Classical Civilization and Tradition (in English), Ancient Greek, and Latin
- Classical Studies: Modern Greek
- Comparative Literature
- Computer Science
- Core Curriculum
- Earth & Environment
- Economics
- Editorial Studies
- English
- First Year Experience
- French: Language, Literature, Linguistics, Culture (including courses in English)
- German: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Hebrew: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Hindi-Urdu: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- History
- History of Art & Architecture
- Interdisciplinary Studies
- International Relations
- Internships
- Italian: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Japanese: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Jewish Studies
- Korean: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Linguistics
- Literary Translation
- Marine Science
- Mathematics & Statistics
- Natural Sciences
- Neuroscience
- Persian (Farsi): Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Political Science
- Portuguese: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Psychological & Brain Sciences
- Religion
- Russian: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- SEA Semester
- Senior Year Development
- Sociology
- Spanish: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Turkish: Language, Literature, Culture (including courses in English)
- Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies
- Writing
-
CAS AA 103: Introduction to African American Literature
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (WR 120 or equivalent) - What is the African American literary tradition? In this course, we will read poetry, slave narratives, essays, speeches, tales, short stories, and novels and consider how culture, politics, and history shape African American literature. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 112: Black Power in the Classroom: The History of Black Studies
Centers Black experiences, cultures, knowledge production and identity formation in the United States and in the African Diaspora across time and space. Examines and traces the genealogies of Black Studies as a discipline: its political, ideological, and practical foundations on college campuses and in communities. Also explores earlier traditions and contemporary work in Black radical thought and activism that lay the groundwork for and build on the founding principles of Black Studies by mobilizing an intersectional and diasporic lens. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS AA 114: Kongo to Cuba: Art, Exchange, and Self-Determination in Africa and Latin America
This course introduces the arts of Africa and Latin America. It explores the rich diversity of each continent's artistic production and highlights the impact of their intertwining histories on visual expression in the wake of transcontinental exchange and globalization. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 132: Write Back Soon: Blackness and the Prison
This course interrogates the theme of black containment from slavery and Jim Crow to, principally, mass incarceration. Students explore the topic alongside the development of open letter writing skills. This form explores the persuasive impact of personal relationships and the politics of public vulnerabilities. Readings include letters to and from prison, documentaries, poetry, short stories, anthologies, memoirs, comics, visual art, and critical interventions. We also look at contemporary projects organizing for abolition and prisoner support.. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 207: Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Examines the fundamental theoretical and empirical approaches regarding race/ethnicity and the current state of race relations in the U.S. that explore both contemporary social problems. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, The Individual in Community, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS AA 215: Arts of Africa and Its Diaspora
Exploration of a diversity of visual and performing arts from Africa, including royal regalia, masquerades, and contemporary painting. Examines how the dispersal of Africans, due to the transatlantic slave trade and immigration, contributed to the cultural richness of the Americas. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 225: Topics in Religion and Music
May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Fall 2019: Religion and Hip Hop Culture. Considers an often overlooked element in the study of hip hop culture, religion. Specifically, the course offers students the opportunity to examine the variety of ways that religion finds expression in the dynamic cultural medium of hip hop. -
CAS AA 234: African Americans in Global Perspective: Slavery and the Creation of Race
A study of how chattel slavery in the Americas led to racialization as a primary tool in the creation of American society and New World capitalism. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 237: Reconstructing the African Past
Explores the richness and diversity of a continent where oral histories and environmental settings have shaped society as much as written records. Considers Africa's critical place in the world from ancient Egypt and Ghana to the Asante and Ethiopian empires. Carries social science divisional credit in CAS. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS AA 270: Race, Sex and Science Fiction
Science Fiction has always been engaged in complex conversations about culture and the fate of the human species. This course takes seriously the presence of issues such as race, sex and gender, which have become increasingly foregrounded in the genre. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 287: Slavery and the In-Between
Examines the space between freedom and enslavement known as recaptivity. Course discussions focus on conceptions of freedom and their relationship to recaptive status. Reviews recaptivity contexts in both the historical and archaeological record. Also examines the theme of return. Effective Fall 2024 fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS AA 296: Religion and Hip Hop
Uses digital media studies to explore diverse religious expressions in hip hop culture. Through critical reading, community field trips, and hands-on technology usage, students consider an often overlooked element in the study of hip hop culture: religion. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS AA 297: African American Women's History
Survey of African American women's history from the slave trade to the present, investigating its critical role in shaping the meaning of race, gender, and sexuality during slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era. Also offered as CAS HI 297 and CAS WS 297. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I. -
CAS AA 304: Introduction to African American Women Writers
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (ex. WR 120) - This course studies the cultural contexts and the ongoing relevance of significant works by African American Women Writers. Works by Jacobs, Butler, Harper, Hurston, Brooks, Kincaid, Morrison and Marshall complemented by critical articles lay out this rich tradition. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 305: Toni Morrison's American Times
Undergraduate Prerequisites: one previous literature course or junior or senior standing. First-Yea r Writing Seminar (WR 120 or equivalent). - Using historical and literary sources to make visible the interactions between the world of the novel and that of American history, the course examines how Morrison's Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, and Love depict crucial times in American history. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 308: Race and Politics
Combining research from history, political science, sociology, and economics, this course examines the role of race and ethnicity in shaping American politics and policy. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking. -
CAS AA 310: Civil Rights History
This course examines the U.S. Civil Rights and the struggle for black freedom movements. From the late nineteenth century through the twenty-first century, we consider events, organizations, "leaders" and organizers, legal campaigns, and political protests to answer the questions: What were the race, class, and gender dynamics within the movements? What were the changing definitions of freedom? The course treats the movement's roots, goals, ideologies, and cultures, and includes a comparison of the struggles for equal rights of Mexican Americans, Native Americans, LGBT folks, and other groups. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS AA 311: African American Religious History
This course offers a historical survey of religions practiced by people of African descent living in North America. Students explore the diverse terrain of African American religiosity, which includes Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Spiritualism, and African-derived religions. -
CAS AA 313: The Politics and Policy of HBO's The Wire
HBO's television series The Wire is used to explore politics and policy. A number of interdisciplinary topics are covered, including the war on drugs, urban elections, bureaucracy, rational choice theory, and the decline of American cities. Also offered as CAS PO 313. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Ethical Reasoning, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS AA 319: Race and the Politics of Criminal Justice Policy
How many people are affected by the criminal justice system? What is the relationship between crime and race? What criminal justice policies, if any, should change? In this course, students will grapple with these questions. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking.