Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS AA 363: Race and the Development of the American Economy: A Global Perspective
  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.
• CAS AA 371: African American History
  Surveys the history of African Americans from their African origins to the present, investigating their critical role in shaping the meaning of race, rights, freedom, and democracy during slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era. Also offered as CAS HI 298.
• CAS AA 380: European Dimensions of the Black Diaspora
  Explores writings about the Black experience in Europe since the 1800s through examinations of historical and literary works, artistic and folkloric depictions, as well as politics and sports in England, France, Germany, Russia, and the Netherlands. Also offered as CAS HI 360.
• CAS AA 382: History of Religion in Pre-Colonial Africa
  The study of the development of religious traditions in Africa during the period prior to European colonialism. An emphasis on both indigenous religions and the growth and spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the continent as a whole. Also offered as CAS HI 349 and CAS RN 382.
• CAS AA 383: African Diaspora Religions
  An introduction to religions of the African Diaspora, with a specific focus on the Caribbean and the Americas. In this course, students engage diverse traditions such as Africanized Christianity, Cuban Santeria, Haitian Vodou, Brazilian Candomble, and African American Spiritualism.
• CAS AA 385: Atlantic History
  Examines the various interactions that shaped the Atlantic World, connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas between 1400 and 1820. Begins by defining the political interaction, then emphasizes cultural exchange, religious conversion, and the revolutionary era.
• CAS AA 395: Power, Leadership, and Governance in Africa and the Caribbean
  Haitian Revolution; British Caribbean, leadership, governance, and power in Africa during the period of legitimate trade; visionaries, dictators, and nationalist politics in the Caribbean; chiefs, western elites, and nationalism in colonial Africa; road to governance in post-colonial Caribbean and Africa. Also offered as CAS HI 352 and IR 394.
• CAS AA 400: Topics in African American Studies
  Topic for Fall 2019: Race, Gender, and Representation. From abolitionism and women's suffrage to workers' rights and the Movement for Black Lives, this seminar examines marginalized and minoritized peoples' mobilization of visual and print media to clapback and correct pervasive stereotypes and misrepresentations in popular culture.
• CAS AA 404: Seminar: The Family
  Explores the rise of "modern" families and the plurality of contemporary family forms and processes including gay and lesbian families and new reproductive technologies. Particular attention to social and economic inequalities and their implications for family life. Also offered as CAS SO 404.
• CAS AA 408: Seminar: Ethnic, Race, and Minority Relations
  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.
• CAS AA 459: Reparations, Restitution, Restorative Justice for Slavery and Jim Crow Segregation: The Debate
  Drawing from a wide-range of interdisciplinary scholarship, this course examines the debate surrounding demands for reparations for slavery, Jim Crow Segregation, and institutionalized racism in the US. Also examines reparations in the comparative context of emerging national and international movements.
• CAS AA 489: The African Diaspora in the Americas
  History of peoples of African descent in the Americas after end of slavery from an international framework. Examines development of racial categories, emergence of national identities in wake of the wars of independence, diverse Black communities in the twentieth century. Also offered as CAS HI 489.
• CAS AA 490: Blacks and Asians: Encounters Through Time and Space
  Exploration of historical encounters between Africans and people of African descent, and Asians and people of Asian descent. How such people imagined themselves, interacted with each other, viewed each other, influenced each other, and borrowed from each other. Also offered as CAS HI 490.
• CAS AA 491: Directed Study in African American Studies
  
• CAS AA 492: Directed Study in African American Studies
  
• CAS AA 500: Topics in African American Studies
  Topic for Spring 2020: Music and Culture: Race and Sound. (Prerequisite: GRS students only.) It is only recently that sound itself has been identified as a sphere for studying the construction of race. This class focuses on the relationships between music, sound and race, but also on intersections with literature, media, and sexuality.
• CAS AA 501: Topics in African American Literature
  Topic for Fall 2019: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. Considers the first century of black Atlantic literature, including poetry and prose by Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, and Frederick Douglass. How did these writers represent the early modern world? How did they work to change it?
• CAS AA 502: Topics in African American Literature
  Topic for Spring 2020: Tracking Changes in the Twentieth-Century African American Novel: Negotiations of Genre and Gender. Readings of Slave Narratives and Neo Slave Narratives, and the Urban Novel. Authors include Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Walter Mosley.
• CAS AA 504: African American and Asian American Women Writers
  Cross-cultural comparison of selected African American and Asian American women writers examines strategies by the "Other" to navigate cultural constructions of race, class, and gender. Attention to literary histories. Also offered as CAS EN 484.
• CAS AA 507: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
  This study of the Harlem Renaissance (1919-1935) focuses on literature with overviews of the stage, the music, and the visual arts. Authors include Du Bois, Locke, Garvey, Schuyler, Hurston, McKay, Larsen, Fisher, Hughes, Cullen. Also offered as CAS EN 377.

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