2026 AAAS Undergraduate Courses
Please visit the Course Schedule page to see which courses are available this Fall semester.
The course information below shouldn't be used for scheduling purposes. Please contact your Advisor if you have any questions about course availability.
Course Offerings
AFAMAST 1101 - Introduction to African American and African Studies
Introduction to the scholarly study of the Africana experience, focusing on patterns of resistance, adaptation, diversity, and transnational connections.
GEN Foundation: Social and Behavioral Sciences; GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
Spring 2026
Time: Tuesday - Thursday, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Instructor: Dr. Michael R. Fisher Jr.
AFAMAST 1111 - Introduction to Africa
This course is a multidisciplinary introduction to the history, peoples, and cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Via a diverse set of sources and mediums, including films, literature, visual art, human rights reports, etc., students will be introduced to a number of important expressions, ideas, episodes, events, and trends in Africa, past and present.
This course fulfills the Historical and Cultural Studies GE Foundation.
AFAMAST 1112 - Introduction to the Black World
This course introduces students to the history & present of the global Black world(s) encompassing Africa & its diasporas.
It explores the racial ideologies that shaped blackness, and looks to its political, cultural, social, & religious expressions.
Students discuss black movements, diversity, and anti-black politics. They learn to look at lived realities of blackness through an intersectional lens.
Spring 2026
Gen Foundation: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Studies
Instructor: Dr. Zoe Samudzi
AFAMAST 2080 - African American History to 1877
The study of African American experience in America from arrival through the era of Reconstruction, focusing on slavery, resistance movements, and African American culture.
GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies; GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Diversity
Cross Listed: History
AFAMAST 2101 - Introduction to African Art and Archaeology
The Art and Archaeology of Africa with emphasis on the historic cultures of Rock Art (8,000 B.C.), Egypt (3,000 B.C.), Nok (900 B.C.), Igbo-Ukwu (695 A.D.), Ife (1200 A.D.), and Benin (1400-1900 A.D.).
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
Cross Listed: History of Art
AFAMAST 2201 - Major Readings in African American and African Studies
This course will introduce students to some of the seminal readings and issues in African American and African Studies from its inception to the present.
Specifically, students will examine the historical and socio-cultural circumstances that brought about and shaped the discipline of Black Studies as well as explore some of the major intellectual and political movements within the Africana World.
Autumn 2026
Mondays and Wednesdays; 3:55 PM - 5:15 PM
Mendenhall Laboratory 191
Dr. Kam Copeland
Topics to be explored include Afrocentricity, Black Feminism, Pan-Africanism, Black Power, and #BlackLivesMatter.
AFAMAST 2025-1 - Hip Hop 50: Hip Hop Music, History & Culture
This course explores Hip Hop music, touching upon its historical background and providing a concise overview of the associated culture. While a primary focus of this course will be Hip Hop music, participants will develop an understanding of Hip Hop culture, focusing on its primary elements (DJing, B-Boying, Graffiti, and Emceeing).
Tuesday and Thursday 3:55 PM - 5:15 PM
Smith Lab 1009; Dr. Jason Rawls
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts open to student with credit for Music 2050
Prereq: Not open to students with credit for Music 2025
AFAMAST 2218 - Black Urban Experience
This course is an examination of contemporary black urban experience focused on the impact of persistent residential segregation, increasing class polarization, and the global force of hip hop culture.
This course fulfills the Legacy General Education Individuals and Groups requirement, and the New General Education Social and Behavioral Sciences and Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Diversity foundations.
Autumn 2026; Online; Data and Time to be determined
Dr. Monica Stigler Johnson
AFAMAST 2050: HIP HOP 50
Hip-hop music, history and culture.
Time: Wednesdays, 3:45 PM - 6:30 PM
Location: Townshend Hall 247
Instructor: Dr. Jason Rawls
AAAS 2081: African American History Since 1877
The study of the African American experience in the United States from the era of Reconstruction through the present, with an emphasis on the intersection of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and social class.
Time: Tuesdays, 12:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Location: London Correctional Institution (LoCI)
Instructor: Dr. Monica Stigler
AFAMAST 2251 - Introduction to African Literature
This course is an assessment of the oral prose tradition and written prose of African literature with specific emphasis placed on student reading from primary sources.
This course fulfills the Legacy General Education Literature and Global Studies requirements, and the New General Education Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts foundation with Dr. Lupenga Mphande
Times: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:20 - 3:40 PM
Location: Denney Hall 214
AFAMAST 2270-01 - Introduction to Black Popular Culture
A critical analysis of the commodity production and consumption of black popular culture products, such as fashion, film, urban fiction, music, vernacular expression, television and advertising.
GEN Foundations: Literacy, Visual & Performance Arts Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
Times: Wednesday & Friday, 9:35AM - 10:55AM
Location: Mendenhall Lab 185
Instructor: Dr. Judson Jeffries
AFAMAST 2270 - Introduction to Black Popular Culture
In this course, we will explore Malcolm X's influence on Black popular culture.
We will perform close readings of classic texts including The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, and many other writings while simultaneously exploring representations of his life in mainstream media and popular culture.
Moreover, this course will analyze how Black artists have revisited and interpreted the contributions and legacy of Malcolm X.
In addition to providing a survey of Black popular culture—including film, television, music, politics, and literature—this course will explore how Malcolm X's life engaged with all these elements and left a lasting influence on Black cultural politics.
Spring 2026
- GEL: Visual and Performing Arts
- GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US
- GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
- GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
Time: Mondays - Wednesdays, 2:20 PM - 3:40 PM
Instructor: Dr. Kam Copeland
AFAMAST 2253 - Introduction to Caribbean Literature
An introduction to Caribbean literature with a focus on prose, poetry, and drama.
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
AFAMAST 2275 - Blackness and the Politics of Sports
The purpose of this course is to assist students in understanding the historical relationship between African Americans & the professional sports industry.
We will explore how the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality function in the world of sports & investigate the cultural tendency to praise athletic achievement over educational or career ambitions.
This course fulfills the Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Diversity GE foundation.
AFAMAST 2288 - Bebop to Doowop to Hiphop: The Rhythm and Blues Tradition
Examines the aesthetic and historical evolution of rhythm and blues: black music tradition including bebop, rock and roll, and hip hop, redefining American popular culture post-WWII.
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
Cross Listed: Music
Times: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:45 PM to 2:05 PM
Location: Mendenhall Lab
Instructor: Dr. Elea Proctor
AFAMAST 2367.01 - African-American Voices in U.S. Literature
Discussion, analysis, and writing about issues presented through the diverse voices of African American literature.
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
Prereq: English 1110
Times: Wednesday & Friday, 11:10 AM -12:30 PM
Location: Dulles Hall 012
Instructor: Dr. Cynthia Young
AFAMAST 2367.04 - Black Women Writers: Text and Context
Writing and analysis of black women's literary representations of issues in United States social history.
GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity
Cross Listed: Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies
Time: Monday - Wednesday, 11:10 AM - 12:30 PM
Location: Online: Synchronous Learning
Instructor: Professor Zalika Iborimi
AFAMAST 3083 - Civil Rights and Black Power Movements
Examines the origins, evolution, and outcomes of the African American freedom struggle, focusing on the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
Cross Listed: History
AFAMAST 3086 - Black Women in Slavery and Freedom
This course traces the experiences and struggles of African American women from slavery through the Civil Rights/Black Power era.
Prerequisite: English 1110.xx, or permission of instructor.
GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, and Immobility
Cross Listed: History (Not open to students with credit for History 3086).
AFAMAST 3230 - Black Women: Culture and Politics
This course is an examination of the social, cultural, political, economic, and historical forces, dynamics, and processes affecting women throughout the Africana world.
This course fulfills the Social Diversity in the US Legacy GE credit, and the Traditions, Cultures, and Transformations GE theme.
Time: Tuesday - Thursday, 12:45 PM - 2:05 PM
Location: University Hall 038
Instructor: Dr. Cassidy Campbell
AFAMAST 3260 - Global Black Cultural Movements
This course focuses on hemispheric studies in the Americas, examining black cultural movements emerging after emancipation through the present.
Gen Theme: Lived environments
Time: Tuesday - Thursday, 9:35 AM - 10:55 AM
Location: University Hall 038
Instructor: Professor Franco Barchies
AFAMAST 3310 - Global Perspectives on the African Diaspora
The course studies the historical processes, key figures and ideas, and cultural expressions of the worldwide dispersion of people of African descent from different times and places.
This course fulfills the Lived Environments GE requirement.
Enrollment by Instructor Permission Only
GEN Theme: Lived Environments
Time: Fridays, 12:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Location: Off Campus Location
Instructor: Dr. Shavagne Scott
AFAMAST 3376 - Arts and Cultures of Africa and the Diaspora
An overview of African and African diaspora cultures from a historical perspective. Cultural media will include art, literature, film, dance, and photography.
GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, & Immobility
Cross Listed: History of Art
Time: Tuesday - Thursday; 11:10 AM - 12:30 PM
Location: Denney Hall 238
Instructor: Dr. Lupenga Mphande
AFAMAST 3440 - Theorizing Race
Introduction to issues of "race," consideration of the historical emergence and development of ideas of "race" and of racist practices, along with their contemporary formations.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
AAAS Major Requirement
Cross Listed: Philosophy
AFAMAST 3450 - The Art and Politics of Hip-Hop
Explores the world of Hip-Hop, from its birth in the Bronx to its infiltration of music, fashion, television, film, dance, print culture, and politics.
It considers critically the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and geography as well as the ways in which Hip-Hop functions simultaneously as aesthetic, analytic, and politic.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 5:30 PM - 6:50 PM
Location: Mendenhall Lab 191
Instructor: Dr. Jason Rawls
AFAMAST 4342 - Religion, Meaning, and Knowledge in Africa and its Diaspora
While the practice of religion in Africa is as diverse as its people, three major belief systems define the practice: African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity. This course will examine classical and contemporary definitions of African Traditional Religion/s and the introduction and adaptations of Islam and Christianity in Africa.
GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations
Cross Listed: Religious Studies
AFAMAST 4571 - Black Visual Culture and Popular Media
An examination of African Americans in visual culture and the theories of representation in popular media.
GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations
AFAMAST 4610 - African Americans and the Law
This is an interdisciplinary course that puts major legal cases affecting African Americans into conversation with their historical underpinnings, as well as the social contexts and how those contexts manifest in African American cultural productions. A central goal of the course is to interrogate the idea of a "colorblind" justice system.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
AFAMAST 4620 - Race, Policing, and the American City
This course is a reading and discussion intensive seminar on race and the criminal punishment system in the US from 1890 to the present.
Fulfilling the citizenship for a diverse and just world general education theme, this course explores how various groups theorize, practice, and advance different - perhaps even divergent - visions of citizenship.
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
Instructor: Dr. V.N. Trinh
AFAMAST 4921 - Intersections: Approaches to Theorizing Difference
This course examines intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender diversity in various sites within American culture (e.g., legal system, civil rights discourse, social justice movements).
Fulfills the Citizenship and Diversity for a Just World GE theme credit.
Prerequisite: One course in COMPSTD, WGSST, or AFAMAST.
Cross listed in COMPSTD and WGSST.
Time: 11:10 AM - 12:30 PM
Location: Mendenhall Lab 173
Instructor: Dr. Elea Proctor
AFAMAST 4999 - Thesis Research
AFAMAST 5240 - Race and Public Policy in the United States
This course explores Race and Public Policy in the United States from Reconstruction to the present.
In particular, the class is designed to look at the long list of "hot topics" in the current policy landscape, including policing, housing, wealth gap, immigration, voting, political representation, and others.
Cross Listed: Comparative Studies and Public Affairs
AFAMAST 5650 - Blackness and the Body in Science and Medicine
This course considers the need for and pursuit of social justice when black bodies are subjected to commodification and systemic subordination.
The course focuses on what Frantz Fanon called the "corporeal schema" of blackness as well as the social construction of blackness to think about the relationship between black bodies and social justice pursuits in medicine and science.
GEN Theme: Health & Well-being