Spring 2023

Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
AFST 100-01 Introduction to Africana Studies
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with LALC 121-01. This interdisciplinary introduction to Africana Studies combines teaching foundational texts in the field with instruction in critical reading and writing. The course will cover Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade, the creation of African Disaporic communities, the conceptualization and representation of Black culture and identity, and the intellectual and institutional development of Black and Africana Studies. This course is cross-listed as LALC 121.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
ALTHSE 201
AFST 171-01 African History since 1800
Instructor: Robin Crigler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 171-01. In this course we will study the political, social, economic and ecological forces that have shaped African societies since 1800. We will examine in depth the Asante kingdom in West Africa, the Kongo kingdom in Central Africa, and the Zulu kingdom in Southern Africa. European's colonization of Africa and Africans' responses will be a major focus of the course.This course is cross-listed as HIST 171.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 104
AFST 220-01 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.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
KAUF 187
AFST 220-03 Gender and Sexuality in African History
Instructor: Robin Crigler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 216-01 and WGSS 202-03. This course examines how African societies have constructed gender and sexuality since the nineteenth century. Lectures and readings will be arranged thematically. Themes include sexuality and reproduction, colonialism and masculinity, queer identities, the household, women's economic activity, political power, religion, and democracy. We will analyze pre-colonial production and reproduction, family life and religion in the twentieth century, gender and nationalist politics, African women's leadership, and transnational debates over gender and sexuality. Readings, including historical studies and novels, songs, and art, will be drawn from across the cultures and languages of Africa.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 103
AFST 220-04 Ecological History of Africa
Instructor: Robin Crigler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 284-01. This course provides an introduction to the ecological history of Africa. We will focus in some detail on demography, the domestication of crops and animals, climate, the spread of New World crops (maize, cassava, cocoa), and disease environments from the earliest times to the present. Central to our study will be the idea that Africa's landscapes are the product of human action. Therefore, we will examine case studies of how people have interacted with their environments. African ecology has long been affected indirectly by decisions made at a global scale. Thus we will explore Africa's engagement with imperialism and colonization and the global economy in the twentieth century. The course ends with an examination of contemporary tensions between conservation and economic development.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 103
AFST 320-01 Radical Politics and Thought of the Caribbean
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with LALC 300-03 and POSC 290-06. This is an interdisciplinary seminar that will explore the contributions of Caribbean theorists, intellectuals, revolutionaries, and activists to the global discourse on Black Radicalism. Focusing on the 20th century, the course will discuss Caribbean articulations on Black liberation, Black Feminism, Black and Third World Marxism. It will forefront the impact Caribbean scholars made on major political and cultural movements of the 20th century such as the Harlem Renaissance, Negritude, Black Power, Third World Movement, and Hip Hop.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 311
AFST 320-02 James Baldwin: Reflections of a Radical
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with WGSS 301-04. 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.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
ALTHSE 109
AFST 320-03 Seminar on Toni Morrison II
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:
Cross-listed with WGSS 301-01.This course is part two of a year-long exploration of the imaginative and critical works of Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison that were published from 1993-2015. We will continue to trace Morrison's development as a novelist, dramatist, childrens book author as well as a literary and cultural critic. In the process, we will examine her provocative commentaries on Black identity, race relations, and culture. In our analyses of these works, we will use such critical lenses as psychoanalytic theory, Black existentialism, Black feminism, and Womanism.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
EASTC 303
AFST 320-04 Black Feminist Thoughts
Instructor: Jerry Philogene
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AMST 200-02, LALC 200-01 and WGSS 202-02. This course provides perspectives on the development and materialization of Black feminist thoughts within historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. Interdisciplinary in focus, it surveys feminist politics and theories through films, popular culture, manifestoes, literary texts, and theoretical and historical essays. It offers an interdisciplinary survey of African-American and other African descendant women's contributions to feminist theory as a heterogeneous field of knowledge encompassing multiple streams of gender- and race-cognizant articulation and praxis. This course will pair primary texts authored by black women with secondary texts produced by black feminist scholars; these critiques will illustrate the myriad ways black feminists engage with and seek to transform representations of black female experience. During the course, we will identify and characterize the major issues that black feminists address as well as the various contemporary forms of resistance to social structures. In addition, the course will explore the diversity and ambiguity of various black feminisms through a number of frames, such as gender theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and reproductive rights and practices. Caribbean, Afro-Latina, and Black British feminisms are also included as we map feminist consciousness and practice across the African Diaspora.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 110
AFST 320-05 Unapologetically Black: Black Pedagogies and Theories of Education
Instructor: Jacquie Forbes
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
BOSLER 314
AFST 400-01 Writing in Africana Studies
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:
This course will build on experiences in the methods course. Students in this course continue research toward and writing of a senior thesis. The emphasis is on writing skills and course material; assignments link those skills to work in Africana Studies. Seniors in the major will work independently with the director of Africana Studies and a second faculty reader (representing a discipline closer to the senior's interest) to produce a lengthy paper or special project which focuses on an issue relevant to the student's concentration. Under the direction of the director of Africana Studies, students will meet collectively two or three times during the semester with the directors (and, if possible, other Africana Studies core and contributing faculty) to share bibliographies, research data, early drafts, and the like. This group will also meet at the end of the semester to discuss and evaluate final papers and projects. Prerequisites: 100 and 200; four 200/300-level AFST approved courses (2 Africa, 2 Diaspora); three 300-level (in area of concentration).
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
EASTC 105
AFST 500-01 Black Students Organizating
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:

Courses Offered in AMST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
AMST 200-02 Black Feminist Thoughts
Instructor: Jerry Philogene
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-04, LALC 200-01 and WGSS 202-02. This course provides perspectives on the development and materialization of Black feminist thoughts within historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. Interdisciplinary in focus, it surveys feminist politics and theories through films, popular culture, manifestoes, literary texts, and theoretical and historical essays. It offers an interdisciplinary survey of African-American and other African descendant women's contributions to feminist theory as a heterogeneous field of knowledge encompassing multiple streams of gender- and race-cognizant articulation and praxis. This course will pair primary texts authored by black women with secondary texts produced by black feminist scholars; these critiques will illustrate the myriad ways black feminists engage with and seek to transform representations of black female experience. During the course, we will identify and characterize the major issues that black feminists address as well as the various contemporary forms of resistance to social structures. In addition, the course will explore the diversity and ambiguity of various black feminisms through a number of frames, such as gender theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and reproductive rights and practices. Caribbean, Afro-Latina, and Black British feminisms are also included as we map feminist consciousness and practice across the African Diaspora.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 110
Courses Offered in EDST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
EDST 391-01 Unapologetically Black: Black Pedagogies and Theories of Education
Instructor: Jacquie Forbes
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-05.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
BOSLER 314
Courses Offered in HIST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
HIST 171-01 African History since 1800
Instructor: Robin Crigler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 171-01. In this course we will study the political, social, economic and ecological forces that have shaped African societies since 1800. We will examine in depth the Asante kingdom in West Africa, the Kongo kingdom in Central Africa, and the Zulu kingdom in Southern Africa. European's colonization of Africa and Africans' responses will be a major focus of the course.This course is cross-listed as AFST 171.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 104
HIST 216-01 Gender and Sexuality in African History
Instructor: Robin Crigler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-03 and WGSS 202-03. This course examines how African societies have constructed gender and sexuality since the nineteenth century. Lectures and readings will be arranged thematically. Themes include sexuality and reproduction, colonialism and masculinity, queer identities, the household, women's economic activity, political power, religion, and democracy. We will analyze pre-colonial production and reproduction, family life and religion in the twentieth century, gender and nationalist politics, African women's leadership, and transnational debates over gender and sexuality. Readings, including historical studies and novels, songs, and art, will be drawn from across the cultures and languages of Africa.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 103
HIST 284-01 Ecological History of Africa
Instructor: Robin Crigler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-04. This course provides an introduction to the ecological history of Africa. We will focus in some detail on demography, the domestication of crops and animals, climate, the spread of New World crops (maize, cassava, cocoa), and disease environments from the earliest times to the present. Central to our study will be the idea that Africa's landscapes are the product of human action. Therefore, we will examine case studies of how people have interacted with their environments. African ecology has long been affected indirectly by decisions made at a global scale. Thus we will explore Africa's engagement with imperialism and colonization and the global economy in the twentieth century. The course ends with an examination of contemporary tensions between conservation and economic development. Offered every two years.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 103
Courses Offered in LALC
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
LALC 121-01 Introduction to Africana Studies
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 100-01. This interdisciplinary introduction to Africana Studies combines teaching foundational texts in the field with instruction in critical reading and writing. The course will cover Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade, the creation of African Disaporic communities, the conceptualization and representation of Black culture and identity, and the intellectual and institutional development of Black and Africana Studies.This course is cross-listed as AFST 100.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
ALTHSE 201
LALC 200-01 Black Feminist Thoughts
Instructor: Jerry Philogene
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-04, AMST 200-02 and WGSS 202-02. This course provides perspectives on the development and materialization of Black feminist thoughts within historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. Interdisciplinary in focus, it surveys feminist politics and theories through films, popular culture, manifestoes, literary texts, and theoretical and historical essays. It offers an interdisciplinary survey of African-American and other African descendant women's contributions to feminist theory as a heterogeneous field of knowledge encompassing multiple streams of gender- and race-cognizant articulation and praxis. This course will pair primary texts authored by black women with secondary texts produced by black feminist scholars; these critiques will illustrate the myriad ways black feminists engage with and seek to transform representations of black female experience. During the course, we will identify and characterize the major issues that black feminists address as well as the various contemporary forms of resistance to social structures. In addition, the course will explore the diversity and ambiguity of various black feminisms through a number of frames, such as gender theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and reproductive rights and practices. Caribbean, Afro-Latina, and Black British feminisms are also included as we map feminist consciousness and practice across the African Diaspora.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 110
LALC 300-03 Radical Politics and Thought of the Caribbean
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-01 and POSC 290-06. This is an interdisciplinary seminar that will explore the contributions of Caribbean theorists, intellectuals, revolutionaries, and activists to the global discourse on Black Radicalism. Focusing on the 20th century, the course will discuss Caribbean articulations on Black liberation, Black Feminism, Black and Third World Marxism. It will forefront the impact Caribbean scholars made on major political and cultural movements of the 20th century such as the Harlem Renaissance, Negritude, Black Power, Third World Movement, and Hip Hop.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 311
Courses Offered in POSC
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
POSC 290-06 Radical Politics and Thought of the Caribbean
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-01 and LALC 300-03. This is an interdisciplinary seminar that will explore the contributions of Caribbean theorists, intellectuals, revolutionaries, and activists to the global discourse on Black Radicalism. Focusing on the 20th century, the course will discuss Caribbean articulations on Black liberation, Black Feminism, Black and Third World Marxism. It will forefront the impact Caribbean scholars made on major political and cultural movements of the 20th century such as the Harlem Renaissance, Negritude, Black Power, Third World Movement, and Hip Hop.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 311
Courses Offered in WGSS
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
WGSS 202-02 Black Feminist Thoughts
Instructor: Jerry Philogene
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-04, AMST 200-02 and LALC 200-01. This course provides perspectives on the development and materialization of Black feminist thoughts within historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. Interdisciplinary in focus, it surveys feminist politics and theories through films, popular culture, manifestoes, literary texts, and theoretical and historical essays. It offers an interdisciplinary survey of African-American and other African descendant women's contributions to feminist theory as a heterogeneous field of knowledge encompassing multiple streams of gender- and race-cognizant articulation and praxis. This course will pair primary texts authored by black women with secondary texts produced by black feminist scholars; these critiques will illustrate the myriad ways black feminists engage with and seek to transform representations of black female experience. During the course, we will identify and characterize the major issues that black feminists address as well as the various contemporary forms of resistance to social structures. In addition, the course will explore the diversity and ambiguity of various black feminisms through a number of frames, such as gender theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and reproductive rights and practices. Caribbean, Afro-Latina, and Black British feminisms are also included as we map feminist consciousness and practice across the African Diaspora.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 110
WGSS 202-03 Gender and Sexuality in African HIstory
Instructor: Robin Crigler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-03 and HIST 216-01. This course examines how African societies have constructed gender and sexuality since the nineteenth century. Lectures and readings will be arranged thematically. Themes include sexuality and reproduction, colonialism and masculinity, queer identities, the household, women's economic activity, political power, religion, and democracy. We will analyze pre-colonial production and reproduction, family life and religion in the twentieth century, gender and nationalist politics, African women's leadership, and transnational debates over gender and sexuality. Readings, including historical studies and novels, songs, and art, will be drawn from across the cultures and languages of Africa.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 103
WGSS 301-01 Seminar on Toni Morrison II
Instructor: Lynn Johnson
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-03.This course is part two of a year-long exploration of the imaginative and critical works of Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison that were published from 1993-2015. We will continue to trace Morrison's development as a novelist, dramatist, childrens book author as well as a literary and cultural critic. In the process, we will examine her provocative commentaries on Black identity, race relations, and culture. In our analyses of these works, we will use such critical lenses as psychoanalytic theory, Black existentialism, Black feminism, and Womanism.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
EASTC 303
WGSS 301-04 James Baldwin: Reflections of a Radical
Instructor: Nadia Alahmed
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-02. 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.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
ALTHSE 109