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Africana Studies Current Courses

Fall 2025

Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
AFST 170-01 African Civilizations to 1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 170-01. This course provides an overview to the political, social, and ecological history of Africa. We will examine the peopling of the continent, the origins of agriculture, the growth of towns and the development of metal technology. Written sources before the 1400s are almost nonexistent for most of Africa, and so we will use archaeological and linguistic sources. The geographic focus of the course will be the Middle Nile, Aksum in Ethiopia, the Sudanic states in West Africa, Kongo in Central Africa, the Swahili states of the East African coast, and Zimbabwe and KwaZulu in Southern Africa. We will also examine the Atlantic Slave Trade and the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope.This course is cross-listed as HIST 170.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313
AFST 200-01 Approaches to Africana Studies
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:
This course will investigate the importance of conceptual analysis and the development of concepts in the theoretical and textual research of Africana Studies. Thus, the course will focus on various interpretive frameworks and approaches to organizing and understanding Africana Studies, including but not limited to the African model, Afrocentricity, diaspora model, critical race theory, post-modernism, and post colonialism. Prerequisite: 100.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
ALTHSE 07
AFST 220-01 The Rise and Fall of Apartheid
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 274-01. The peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa in the early 1990s was widely hailed as the "South African Miracle." This course asks why such a transition should be considered miraculous. In order to answer our question, we will begin with South African independence from Britain in 1910 and study the evolution of legalized segregation and the introduction in 1948 of apartheid. After reviewing opposition movements we will move to a discussion of the demise of apartheid and the negotiated political order that took its place. We will examine the machinery and the deliberations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and debate its accomplishments. The course ends with an examination of memory and history.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 313
AFST 220-02 African American Foodways
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:
This course examines the multifarious ways in which food has influenced the expressions of African American identity and culture. We will begin with a discussion of food as a cultural connector that preserves the ties between African Americans and their African antecedents. Subsequently, we will consider specific African American culinary practices and the origins of soul food. Additionally, we will analyze the roles of food in African American social activism. In so doing, we will pay particular attention to the relationships that exist among food consumption, human rights, and African American communal health, as represented by the anti-soul food and black vegetarianism/veganism movements.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
ALTHSE 110
AFST 220-03 Global Eastern Africa
Instructor: James Ellison
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ANTH 255-01. This course examines global connections in the intersections of culture and power that underlie contemporary issues in eastern Africa. The globally marketed indigenous cultures and exotic landscapes of eastern Africa, like current dilemmas of disease and economic development, are products of complex local and transnational processes (gendered, cultural, social, economic, and political) that developed over time. To understand ethnicity, the success or failure of development projects, the social and economic contexts of tourism, responses to the AIDS crisis, the increasing presence of multinational corporations, and other contemporary issues, we will develop an ethnographic perspective that situates cultural knowledge and practice in colonial and postcolonial contexts. While our focus is on eastern Africa, the course will offer students ways to think about research and processes in other contexts.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 303
AFST 220-04 African Americans Since Slavery
Instructor: Emily Hawk
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 273-01. Focuses on the history of Americans of African ancestry in the years following the American Civil War, which ended in 1865. The course examines several important transformations of African Americans as a people. In the first, we consider the transition from slavery to a nominal but highly circumscribed "freedom," which ended with the destruction of Reconstruction governments in the South. We consider the institution-building and community-building processes among African Americans, and the development of distinctive elite and folk cultures among various classes of black people. We examine the Great Migration north and west between 1900 and 1920, and the urbanization of what had been a predominately rural people. Fifth, we consider the differential impact of World War I, the Great Depression, and the New Deal and World War II on African Americans, and the creation of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's - 1980's.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 211
AFST 320-01 James Baldwin: Reflections of a Radical
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with WGSS 301-02. This is an interdisciplinary seminar that seeks to explore the different sides of James Baldwin: a writer, an intellectual, a cosmopolitan, a radical, and an activist. The seminar will focus on James Baldwin's essays, in addition to his major novels and works of fiction. We will watch the recent, highly acclaimed film based on his writings, "I am not your Negro" as well as his speeches and debates with prolific figures like Malcolm X. Finally, we will explore Baldwin's invaluable contributions to the discourses on Queer Studies, critical race theory, class, philosophy, and above all, his visions of Black liberation and the meaning of freedom.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
ALTHSE 201
AFST 320-02 Toni Morrison
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:
Cross-listed with WGSS 301-03. This course is part one of a yearlong exploration of the imaginative and critical works of Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison. During the semester, we will trace Morrison's development as a novelist from 1970-2000, paying particular attention to the ways in which she crafts her novels and employs them to provide provocative commentaries on Black identity and culture. In our analyses of these works, we will use such critical approaches as psychoanalytic theory, Black feminism, and new historicism.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
ALTHSE 109
AFST 500-01 Beyond the Binary: Gender Variance in Pre-Colonial Africa
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:

AFST 500-02 Memory and Migration: Tracing Histories of Colonization, Conflict, and Reconciliation in Liberia
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:

AFST 500-03 Paranoia: The Mental Health Capacity within Black Families
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:

Courses Offered in ANTH
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
ANTH 255-01 Global Eastern Africa
Instructor: James Ellison
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-03. This course examines global connections in the intersections of culture and power that underlie contemporary issues in eastern Africa. The globally marketed indigenous cultures and exotic landscapes of eastern Africa, like current dilemmas of disease and economic development, are products of complex local and transnational processes (gendered, cultural, social, economic, and political) that developed over time. To understand ethnicity, the success or failure of development projects, the social and economic contexts of tourism, responses to the AIDS crisis, the increasing presence of multinational corporations, and other contemporary issues, we will develop an ethnographic perspective that situates cultural knowledge and practice in colonial and postcolonial contexts. While our focus is on eastern Africa, the course will offer students ways to think about research and processes in other contexts.This course is cross-listed as AFST 255. Offered every two years.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 303
Courses Offered in HIST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
HIST 170-01 African Civilizations to 1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 170-01. This course provides an overview to the political, social, and ecological history of Africa. We will examine the peopling of the continent, the origins of agriculture, the growth of towns and the development of metal technology. Written sources before the 1400s are almost nonexistent for most of Africa, and so we will use archaeological and linguistic sources. The geographic focus of the course will be the Middle Nile, Aksum in Ethiopia, the Sudanic states in West Africa, Kongo in Central Africa, the Swahili states of the East African coast, and Zimbabwe and KwaZulu in Southern Africa. We will also examine the Atlantic Slave Trade and the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope.This course is cross-listed as AFST 170.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313
HIST 273-01 African Americans Since Slavery
Instructor: Emily Hawk
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-04. Focuses on the history of Americans of African ancestry in the years following the American Civil War, which ended in 1865. The course examines several important transformations of African Americans as a people. In the first, we consider the transition from slavery to a nominal but highly circumscribed "freedom," which ended with the destruction of Reconstruction governments in the South. We consider the institution-building and community-building processes among African Americans, and the development of distinctive elite and folk cultures among various classes of black people. We examine the Great Migration north and west between 1900 and 1920, and the urbanization of what had been a predominately rural people. Fifth, we consider the differential impact of World War I, the Great Depression, and the New Deal and World War II on African Americans, and the creation of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's - 1980's. This course is cross-listed as AFST 221. Offered every two years.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 211
HIST 274-01 The Rise and Fall of Apartheid
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 274-01. The peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa in the early 1990s was widely hailed as the "South African Miracle." This course asks why such a transition should be considered miraculous. In order to answer our question, we will begin with South African independence from Britain in 1910 and study the evolution of legalized segregation and the introduction in 1948 of apartheid. After reviewing opposition movements we will move to a discussion of the demise of apartheid and the negotiated political order that took its place. We will examine the machinery and the deliberations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and debate its accomplishments. The course ends with an examination of memory and history.This course is cross-listed as AFST 274.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 313
Courses Offered in WGSS
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
WGSS 301-02 James Baldwin: Reflections of a Radical
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-01. This is an interdisciplinary seminar that seeks to explore the different sides of James Baldwin: a writer, an intellectual, a cosmopolitan, a radical, and an activist. The seminar will focus on James Baldwin's essays, in addition to his major novels and works of fiction. We will watch the recent, highly acclaimed film based on his writings, "I am not your Negro" as well as his speeches and debates with prolific figures like Malcolm X. Finally, we will explore Baldwin's invaluable contributions to the discourses on Queer Studies, critical race theory, class, philosophy, and above all, his visions of Black liberation and the meaning of freedom.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
ALTHSE 201
WGSS 301-03 Toni Morrison
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-02. This course is part one of a yearlong exploration of the imaginative and critical works of Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison. During the semester, we will trace Morrison's development as a novelist from 1970-2000, paying particular attention to the ways in which she crafts her novels and employs them to provide provocative commentaries on Black identity and culture. In our analyses of these works, we will use such critical approaches as psychoanalytic theory, Black feminism, and new historicism.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
ALTHSE 109