2025-2026 Academic Year

Fall 2025

FYSM 100 First-Year Seminar
The First-Year Seminar (FYS) introduces students to Dickinson as a "community of inquiry" by developing habits of mind essential to liberal learning. Through the study of a compelling issue or broad topic chosen by their faculty member, students will: - Critically analyze information and ideas - Examine issues from multiple perspectives - Discuss, debate and defend ideas, including one's own views, with clarity and reason - Develop discernment, facility and ethical responsibility in using information, and - Create clear academic writing The small group seminar format of this course promotes discussion and interaction among students and their professor. In addition, the professor serves as students' initial academic advisor. This course does not duplicate in content any other course in the curriculum and may not be used to fulfill any other graduation requirement.

WGSS 301 James Baldwin Studies Renaiss
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.

AFST 320 James Baldwin Studies Renaiss
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.

AFST 500 Independent Study

Spring 2026

MUAC 210 It's a Hip Hop World
Cross-listed with AFST 227-01. This course is an introduction to critical Hip Hop studies from the genesis of the culture in Black America in the 1970s until the global phenomenon it is today. Focusing on the Hip Hop production of marginalized peoples, the course will explore the nature of cultural and political processes which take place when Hip Hop integrates into the dominant or indigenous culture and music. We will discuss the meaning and implications of authenticity in Hip Hop in the face of commercialization, cultural syncretism, and identity politics. We will address issues of appropriation that are embedded in these cultural processes. Finally, we will trace the aesthetic, cultural, and political evolutions of Hip hop on a global scale. Some of the questions the course poses are: how did Hip Hop evolve through the years within the global context? How are the defining features of this culture and music shaped within different marginalized groups and national borders? What unique musical, cultural, and political features make Hip Hop the most popular genre of resistance and self-affirmation around the world? What are some of Hip Hop’s contributions to global social change movements? In this Hip Hop world, which track will you play next?

POSC 215 Black Politics
Cross-listed with AFST 341-01.

AFST 227 It’s a Hip Hop World
Cross-listed with MUAC 210-01.

AFST 341 Black Politics
Cross-listed with POSC 215-01.

AFST 400 Writing in Africana Studies
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).