College of Arts & Sciences
African American Studies
CoursesDirector ad interim Gene Jarrett
Professors Blakely, Breiner, Crawford, Heywood, Margo, Thornton
Associate Professor Jarrett, Richardson
Visiting Assistant Professors Boelcskevy, Rabig
Professors Emeriti Cromwell, Teele
The African American Studies Program explores the African American experience in global and comparative perspective. Courses are designed to make students aware of the connections between Americans of African descent, other Americans, and global populations. Critical investigation of race, ethnicity, and other forms of collective identity is a central concern of the program.
Minor Concentration in African American Studies
The minor concentration in African American Studies provides an introduction to the global study of the African American experience and to various forms of collective identity such as race and ethnicity.
The minor concentration requires six courses, completed with a grade of C or higher: CAS AA 371 African American History, CAS AA 580 The History of Racial Thought, and four additional courses in African American Studies.
Courses
CAS AA 207 Introduction to Ethnic, Race, and Minority Relations
Social definition of race and ethnicity. The adjustment of different ethnic groups and their impact upon U.S. social life. How prejudice and discrimination create class identities and how caste relations have affected patterns of integration during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Also offered as CAS SO 207. Stone, Kibria, Monti. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 304 Introduction to African American Women Writers
Surveys the writings of African American women writers from slavery to the present and explores the African American female literary tradition in the context of Black history and culture. Also offered as CAS EN 370. Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 310 History of the Civil Rights Movement
History of the African American struggle for racial equality and democracy from the turn of the century through the 1960s. Use is made of the most recent scholarship, memoirs, documentary films, and oral history accounts. Also offered as CAS HI 378. Rabig. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 316 African Diaspora Arts in the Americas
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 363 Race and the Development of the American Economy: A Global Perspective
Prereq: CAS EC 101 or consent of intructor. Surveys the economic history of African Americans within the context of the development of the American and global economies. Topics include the economics of slavery; race and industrialization; the Great Migration; anti-discrimination legislation; and the historical origins of contemporary racial inequalities. Also offered as CAS EC 363. Margo. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 371 African American History
Prereq: sophomore standing. The history of African Americans from African origins to present time; consideration of slavery, reconstruction, and ethnic relations from the colonial era to our own time. Also offered as CAS HI 371. Rabig. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 385 Atlantic History
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 395 Power, Leadership, and Governance in Africa and the Caribbean
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 396 State and Commerce in Atlantic Africa, 1450–1850
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 408 Seminar: Ethnic, Race, and Minority Relations
Prereq: CAS AA 207 or SO 207, or consent of instructor. Formation and position of ethnic minorities in the United States, including cross-group comparisons from England, Africa, and other parts of the world. Readings and field experience. Also offered as CAS SO 408. Stone. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 489 The African Diaspora in the Americas
Prereq: consent of instructor. Topic for Spring 2010: African American History in Global and Comparative Perspective. African American history in an international framework. Examines development of racial categories in early transatlantic trade, Black participation in armed conflict, diverse Black communities in the twentieth century. Also offered as CAS HI 489. Rabig. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 490 Blacks and Asians: Encounters Through Time and Space
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 491, 492 Directed Study in African American Studies
Prereq: consent of director. 4 cr, 1st & 2nd sem.
CAS AA 501 Topics in African American Literature
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 502 Topics in African American Literature
Topic for Spring 2010: Twentieth-Century African American Novel. Major works from the Harlem Renaissance, Realism, Modernism, the Black Arts Movement, and the contemporary period. Authors include Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Wallace Thurman, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, John Wideman, and Toni Morrison. Also offered as CAS EN 380. Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 504 African American and Asian American Women Writers
Prereq: sophomore standing. Cross-cultural comparison of African American and Asian American women writers. Explores and evaluates the cultural impact of their work, and looks at how these two groups bound together by “otherness” pursue the theme of conflicting cultures. Also offered as CAS EN 371. Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 505 Black Community and Social Change
Forces within the larger society that enhance and/or inhibit development of the Black community. Assesses potential of the Black community to initiate and implement changes affecting its own development locally and nationally. Rabig. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 507 Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
Prereq: consent of instructor. A study of the major writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Explores how they proclaimed a renewal of racial consciousness and cultural pride, and how they challenged racial and cultural barriers in American society. Also offered as CAS EN 377. Boelcskevy. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 510 African American Drama
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 514 Comparative Slavery
Prereq: junior standing. The institution of slavery in history with a special focus on slavery and the slave trade in Africa and the Americas in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Attention to cultural and political issues as well as economic and social aspects of slavery. Also offered as CAS HI 584. Thornton. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 537 Studies in West Indian Literature: Caribbean Fiction
Prereq: junior standing. Two topics are offered Spring 2010. Students may take either or both for credit. Topic for Section A1: Caribbean Fiction. Modern Caribbean fiction written in English, with attention to cultural and political background. Authors such as Sam Selvon, V. S. Naipaul, Earl Lovelace, Robert Antoni (Trinidad); Wilson Harris, Pauline Melville (Guyana); Roger Mais, Olive Senior (Jamaica); Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua). Topic for Section B1: Postcolonial Theater. The emergence of a national theater movement as a feature of decolonization. “Writing back” to traditions in world-class Anglophone dramatists from Ireland (Gregory, Synge, Yeats), Trinidad (Walcott, Matura, Lovelace), Nigeria (Soyinka, Ladipo), and South Africa (Fugard and “township theater”). Also offered as CAS EN 586. Breiner. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 538 Studies in West Indian Literature: Caribbean Poetry
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 559 Reckoning with the Past: Reparations and Justice in Comparative Perspective
The debate about reparations for slavery and Jim Crow segregation in the United States examined critically as conversation about, and movement for, retrospective justice. Includes discussion of war crimes tribunals and truth commissions. Also offered as CAS PO 559. Crawford. 4 cr, 1st sem.
CAS AA 563 Race and the Development of the American Economy: A Global Perspective
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 564 From Slavery to Freedom: Abolition in Comparative Perspective
How did legalized slavery, a worldwide practice for thousands of years, end? The process of abolition in the Americas, Africa, and elsewhere is examined and compared to the later regulation of forced labor and to contemporary slavery. Also offered as CAS PO 564. Crawford. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 569 African American Economic History
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 571 African American Art
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 580 The History of Racial Thought
Study of racial thinking and feeling in Europe and the United States since the fifteenth century. Racial thinking in the context of Western encounters with non-European people and Jews; its relation to social, economic, cultural, and political trends. Also offered as CAS HI 580. Blakely. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 583 Black Radical Thought
Black radical thought in America, Europe, and Africa since the eighteenth century through writings of abolitionists, leaders of revolutions and liberation movements, and Black socialists. Emphasizes the global nature of the “Black World” and its role in world history. Also offered as CAS HI 583. Blakely. 4 cr, 2nd sem.
CAS AA 586 African Americans Abroad
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 588 Women, Power, and Culture in Africa
Not offered 2009/2010
CAS AA 590 The World and the West
Not offered 2009/2010
Related Courses
See courses listed in the History, Psychology, English, Sociology, Economics, and Religion sections on this site.
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