African American and African Studies Courses

1000 Level

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

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.

GEN Foundation: Historical & Cultural Studies

AFAMAST 1112 - Introduction to the Black World

This course introduces students to the history and present of the Black World, encompassing both the African continent and its diasporas. Students will explore the historical events and the racial ideologies that shaped global Blackness and examine political, cultural, social, and religious expressions among a variety of communities within the global African diaspora.

GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity

2000 Level

AFAMAST 2006 - American Civics: Freedom, Democracy, and Struggle

Examines American civic traditions from an interdisciplinary perspective. We will investigate the conceptual and historical roots of key texts, alongside their impacts and ongoing legacies in the United States and beyond. Key themes include: the contested relationships among church, state, and economy; debates over the meaning of democracy and citizenship; competing notions of progress.

GEN Foundation:  Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity

Cross-listed: Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies; Comparative Studies

AFAMAST 2009 - Introduction to African American Art

Introduces students to the topic of African American Art, juxtaposing conventional approaches to art (painting, sculpting, line drawing, installation) with innovative approaches to visual culture (found objects, everyday materials, contemporary performance). We will study how race, ethnicity, and gender diversity are formative to African American art and its histories.

GEN Foundation: Historical & Cultural Studies; GEN Foundation:  Literary, Visual, & Performing Art

Cross-listed: History of Art

AFAMAST 2050 - Hip Hop 50 - Hip Hop Music, History, & Culture

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).

GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual, & Performing Arts

Cross-listed: Music 

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 & Cultural Studies; GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Diversity

Cross Listed: History

AFAMAST 2081 - African American History from 1877

The study of the African American experience in the United States from the era of Reconstruction through the present.

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

An introduction to major authors and texts contributing to the discourses that have shaped and defined African American and African Studies from its inception to the present.

GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity

Major or Minor Requirement

AFAMAST 2218 - Black Urban Experience

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.

GEN Foundation: Social & Behavioral Sciences, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity

AFAMAST 2251- Introduction to African Literature

An assessment of the oral prose traditions and written prose of African Literature; specific emphasis placed on student readings from primary sources.

GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts

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 2270 - 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 Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts; GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity

2275 - Blackness and the Politics of Sports

This interdisciplinary course considers the role of Black athletes in society and culture, the racial politics involved, and the global implications of race on courts, playing fields, tracks, and other athletic arenas.

GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity, & Gender Diversity

AFAMAST 2281 - Introduction to African-American Literature

A study of representative literary works by African-American writers from 1760 to the present.

GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity, & Gender Diversity

Cross Listed: English

AFAMAST 2285 - Afropop: Popular Music and Culture in Contemporary Africa

This course focuses on the rich variety, aesthetic beauty, and political significance of popular music in modern African cities. By closely attending to the genres, forms, styles, and social life of African popular music, students will encounter the dynamic soundscape of popular culture in Africa today.

GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies; GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity, & Gender Diversity

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

AFAMAST 2295 - Resisting Slavery in the Americas

Examines the history of slave uprisings in the Americas to explore how slavery was experienced, imagined, & contested by the enslaved. We use primary & secondary written sources to delve deeper into the ideologies, tactics, & meanings of slave resistance. We explore how race, gender, ethnicity & class as well as their intersectionality shaped the contours of slavery in the America.

GEN Foundation:  Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity 

AFAMAST 2301 - African Peoples and Empires in World History

A thematic course focusing on African world history, empire building, and commercial and cultural links across the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean worlds before and during the Atlantic slave trade.

GEN Foundation: Historical & Cultural Studies

Cross Listed: History

AFAMAST 2302 - History of Modern African, 1800-1960s

Thematic survey of African history from 1800 to the 1960s.

GEN Foundation: Historical & Cultural Studies

Cross Listed: History

AFAMAST 2303 - History of Contemporary Africa, 1960 – present

Africa from independence to the present. Contemporary African societies, cultures, economics, and politics from independence to the present.

GEN Foundation: Historical & Cultural Studies

Cross Listed: History

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

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

AFAMAST 2367.07S - Literacy Narratives of Black Columbus

This service-learning course focuses on collecting and preserving literacy narratives of Columbus-area Black communities. Through engagement with community partners, students refine skills in research, analysis, and composition; students synthesize information, create arguments about discursive/visual/cultural artifacts, and reflect on the literacy and life-history narratives of Black Columbus.

GEN Theme: Lived Environments

Cross Listed: English

3000 Level

3080 Slavery in the United States

The African American experience in slavery, focusing on the rise of the slave trade, slavery in the colonial and antebellum eras, the Civil War, and abolition.

Cross Listed: History

3081 -Fee Blacks in Antebellum America

Explores the development of free Black communities in the era before the Civil War, focusing on emancipation, fugitive slaves, resistance movements and suffrage.

Cross-listed: History 

3082 Black Americans During the Progressive Era

History and experiences of black Americans during the period best known in American History as the Progressive Era. Sometimes this course is offered in a distance-only format.

Cross Listed: History

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

3084 Citizens Behind Bars: Black Leadership and the Politics of Liberation in African American History

Every day more human beings are locked inside of jails, prison, or secured facilities across the United States more than in any other country on the planet.  This course explores the history of citizenship and captivity and the legacy of liberatory movements lead by incarcerated citizens in the US from the era of settler colonization and slavery to the present age of mass incarceration.   

GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

Cross Listed: History; Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies 

AFAMAST 3086 - Black Women in Slavery and Freedom

Traces the experiences and struggles of African American women from slavery through the Civil Rights/Black Power era.

GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, & Immobility

Cross Listed: History

AFAMAST 3089 – Studies in African American History

Selected topics in African American history from the origins of slavery to the present.

Cross Listed: History

AFAMAST 3110 – Social (In)Justice and the Black Experience

This course will provide an historical grounding/foundation of Black social justice movements in America to help students understand some of the most pressing issues facing African Americans today. In so doing, this course will focus on key events, movements, and ideas that have shaped and informed Black peoples’ social justice efforts in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

AFAMAST 3230 - Black Women: Culture and Politics

Examination of the social, cultural, political, economic, and historical forces, dynamics, and processes affecting women throughout the Africana world.

GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations

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. It considers the ways people of African descent in the Americas have used cultural productions--literature, poetry, film, music, visual art, and performance--to construct identities; agitate for equality; and understand aesthetics as political and beautiful.

GEN Theme: Lived Environments

3304 History of Islam in Africa

Africa from the emergence of Islam in the 600s to the Present. African contributions to Islam and the impact of Islam on African societies.

Cross Listed: History

AFAMAST 3310 - Global Perspectives on the African Diaspora

Study of historical processes, key figures and ideas, and cultural expressions of the worldwide dispersion of people of African descent from different times and places.

GEN Theme: Lived Environments

Major or Minor Requirement

AFAMAST 3320 – History of African Cinema

Emergence and development of African cinema as a film genre and part of material culture. European colonial and ethnographic to modern African cinema.

Cross Listed: History (3310)

AFAMAST 3354-Hip Hop Sampling and Beat Making I 

An introduction to the art and practice of creating beats that explores the history, artistic, and sociocultural significance of beats and beat-making in the hip hop music tradition. Students will study beat creators, creative technologies, source materials, and the artistic and social role of the DJ. This course is an elective option for the Music BS, Creative Practice track.

Cross-listed: Music

AFAMAST 3355-Hip Hop Sampling and Beat Making II

this course will advance each students skills for beat making and is a continuation of the skills learned in AFAMAST/MUSIC 3354. Students will further develop their skills of beat making and production focusing on the intricate details of their craft (i.e. DAW, sequence & song structure, and mixing and mastering techniques).

Cross-listed: Music

AFAMAST 3370 - Being African in America

We examine the particular experiences of first- and second-generation Africans in America, for whom today's amplified "us vs. them" rhetoric threatens to fracture what W.E.B. Du Bois called an African American sense of "two-ness." What are the constraints on a doubly conscious "African" and "American" identity in the United States? What are the challenges of sustaining a fragile social pluralism?

GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, & Immobility

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

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

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

3956 Black Cultures and Classical Education

Study the role of classics in African and the African Diaspora (US, Caribbean, Brazil). Major themes include: adaptations of classical literature, impact of classical education, classics as a tool of colonial oppression, classics as a tool of anti-colonial resistance, theories of race, classical and classicizing depictions of black bodies.

Cross Listed: Classics

4000 Level & above

4250 African Politics

An introductory survey of Sub-Saharan African politics from the pre-colonial period to the contemporary era. It will examine the common themes, issues, and trends that shape politics and development across forty-nine countries. Students will gain an understanding of how context shapes political behavior and how historical and political forces have influenced African politics.

Cross Listed: Political Science

4326 Topics in African American and Public Policy

Examination of the impact of public policies on African American communities in the U.S. from the New Deal's Welfare State policies and programs of the 1930's to the present.

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 

4504 Black Politics

Economic, political, and social constraints on the development of black political power, the efforts made by black people in recent times to organize for effective political action.

Cross Listed: Political Science (4140)

4535 Topics in Black Masculinity

A theoretical analysis of constructions, perceptions, and performances of black masculinity locally and globally.

4551 Topics in Africana Literature

Topics selected will relate to varying issues in the literatures of the Africa and the African Diaspora.

4565 Topics in African Diaspora Studies

Selected topics which examine the origins, dimensions, and dynamics of the African Diaspora; topics vary each term.

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

4582 Special Topics in African-American Literature

Focuses on themes in African-American Literature.

Cross Listed: English

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, & the American City

"Race, Policing, & the American City" is a reading-& discussion-intensive seminar on race & the criminal punishment system in the US from 1890 to the present. Based on its "Citizenship for a Just & Diverse World" thematic designation, this course explores how various groups theorize, practice, & advance different - perhaps even divergent - visions of citizenship.

GE Theme:  Citizenship for Diverse & Just World.

AFAMAST 4921 - Intersections: Approaches to Theorizing Difference

Examines intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality in various sites within American culture (e.g., legal system, civil rights discourse, social justice movements).

GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

Major Requirement

Cross Listed: Comparative Studies and Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies 

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

AFAMAST 5681 - Black Art in America: Art & Cultural Policies from Reconstruction to Afrofuturism

 Takes a unique approach in how arts management, arts entrepreneurship, cultural production, and cultural organizations are studied. This is done by looking at the decisions made, and practices and policies employed, by Black Americans in the arts throughout the complex, and often problematic, history of the United States.

Cross-List: Art Education