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 MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • CAS AA 410: The Poetics and Politics of Hip Hop
    Students engage with hip hop history, including aesthetic trends, some important artists and works, regional styles, and relationship with the larger sociocultural context. Students will critique and remake hip hop canons. They will identify how hip hop is shaped by race, class, and gender issues and reflect on their own positionality. They will acquire and apply listening, viewing, and reading skills to interpret primary and secondary sources and bring their analyses of these sources to bear. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AA 411: Race, Memory, and Diaspora in US Popular Music
    Examines selected popular and vernacular musical cultures in the U.S. within a broad historical, political, and economic context; how global musical practices brought by people to the U.S. have been shaped by the unique space of the nation; and how these styles are the product of interracial and intercultural dialogues, struggles, and negotiation processes that continue to produce new hybrid forms. Will develop ability to hear and appreciate entanglements that immerse music-making within competing interests and sensibilities, using key concepts on race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AA 415: Fictions of Race and Migration
    Just as immigration is central to American literature, much African American literature has been produced by Blacks from outside the United States. This class explores the history and presence of these migrants and their impact on language, culture and politics. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS AA 420: African American and Asian American Women Writers: Cross-Cultural Perspective
    Examines literary representations of race, ethnicity, gender and class through the lens of cross-cultural connections between African Americans and Asian Americans. Which strategies do these women writers use to speak to their often- mainstream readers? How do they challenge traditional gender roles? Effective Fall 2021, this course 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.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Critical Thinking
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AA 430: Black American Cinema
    A survey of important genres and movements in the history of Black American cinema, with possible focus on race films, civil rights dramas, horror and Blaxploitation films, postcolonial cinema, the LA Rebellion school, Black independent film, afrofuturism, and/or more. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Aesthetic Exploration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • The Individual in Community
  • 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 477: Critical Studies: Black Diaspora Theory and Practice
    Explore "diaspora" as a keyword for black studies, intervene in the term's emergence, usage, and many theorizations. Beginning with Paul Gilroy's take on diasporic culture and consciousness, course goes on to complicate/extend/challenge through lens of black gender and sexuality studies. 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.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • The Individual in Community
    • Critical Thinking
  • 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 493: Special Topics in Cinema and Media Studies
    May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Spring 2022: Black Television Comedy. Seminar focusing on comedy in Black American television from 1950s to present, with close attention to the role of humor in discussing issues such as socioeconomics, gender, religion, and politics across eras of network, cable, and streaming television.
  • CAS AA 500: Topics in African American Studies
    Topic for Spring 2021: "Identity." This course takes seriously the ongoing dependence on "identity" in cultural tensions, artistic expressions and cultural debates. Where did it come from, what does it mean and why does it matter? Via a cross-cultural exploration of literary, historical and critical works we engage how "identity" is claimed, mobilized and sometimes weaponized.
  • 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 Fall 2022: 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 Perspective
    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.
  • CAS AA 507: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
    An exploration of the literature of the "New Negro Renaissance" or, more popularly, the Harlem Renaissance, 1919-1935. Discussions of essays, fiction, and poetry, three special lectures on the stage, the music, and the visual arts of the Harlem Renaissance. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, 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.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Critical Thinking
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AA 514: Labor, Sexuality, and Resistance in the Afro-Atlantic World
    The role of slavery in shaping the society and culture of the Afro-Atlantic world, highlighting the role of labor, the sexual economy of slave regimes, and the various strategies of resistance deployed by enslaved people. Also offered as CAS HI 584. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • CAS AA 517: Urban Politics and Policy
    Explores the impact of American urban politics on the implementation of local policy. Topics include deindustrialization, white flight, neighborhood effects, housing policy, schools, regionalism, and factors that constrain policy-making capacities. Also offered as CAS PO 517. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Writing-Intensive Course, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AA 519: Inequality and American Politics
    This course examines the role of income inequality in shaping American politics and policy. Combining research from history, political science, economics, and public policy scholars, we will consider a range of important topics, including inequality in public voice, money and politics, and attitudes towards redistribution. We will apply this knowledge as part of a final paper project in metropolitan Boston. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Writing- Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course

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