Department of Africana Studies Spring 2008 Course Descriptions
>View Fall 2007 Course Descriptions
>View Fall 2008 Course Descriptions
AFST 10402 Modern Jazz Larry Dwyer
MWF 12:50p.m. - 1:40p.m.
crosslisted w/Music Dept
A study of the jazz performers and practices of the latter half of the twentieth century to today -- the roots, stylistic developments and directions of individual artists, small combos, and big bands, using recordings, videos, and live concerts. No musical experience is required.
AFST 20082 Intro. To Africana Studies Instructor
TR 12:30p.m. - 1:45p.m.
Through a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural exploration, this course will (1) introduce students to key concepts, themes, and theories in the field of Africana Studies; and (2) introduce students to the identities and experiences of black populations throughout the global African Diaspora. Over the course of the semester, we will tackle the following questions: What is Africana Studies? What are the historical, intellectual, and political origins of Africana Studies? What are race and ethnicity? What is blackness? What roles do class, culture, gender, nationality, and religion, play in blackness? What is the African Diaspora? What role does Africa play in blackness? How do the arts humanities, and social sciences help us investigate, analyze, conceptualize, represent, and understand this thing we refer to as "blackness?" What are some of the historical geographical, socio-political, and cultural points of divergence observable between populations of African descent throughout the Diaspora and what, if any, are the points of commonality that unite these dispersed populations?
AFST 20275 Some Other Mess Jacquetta Page
TR 3:30p.m. - 4:45p.m.
They go by many names: bohos, artists, radicals, intellectuals, TRAs, mixies and punks. They are members of the African Diaspora who defy the stereotypical construction of Black people that the media and a history of marginalization by the “mainstream: culture have created. People who look like them and with whom they share the same politicized racial identity often ostracize them. Are these individuals dangerous outsiders, who by eschewing the communal traditions that led to the securing of civil rights for a united African American population are imperiling Black identity with a quest for individual freedom? Or, are they renegades whose explorations outside of accepted constructions of Black identity challenge entrenched ideas of race, class, sexuality and gender, not only for African Americans, but for everyone living in a postmodern multicultural world? Are they part of a long and illustrious history of identity exploration by African Americans who helped to shape and change American culture?
These are some of the questions we will explore in this course. It is an investigation into the lives, work, and legacies of members of the African Diaspora who are clearly into “some other mess” that is, those who insist on doing their own thing in the world that still takes issue with individual freedom of expression for some marginalized peoples. The assertion of the right to individual expression raises questions that are at the heart of the American ideal of integration and the African American construct of Community. By critically engaging the works of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, writing by generations of cultural critics, the stories of adoptees and multiracial African Americans, the music of progressive musicians, scholarship by Black feminists of both genders, and the media representations of African Americans in the Postwar United States, we will begin to understand the role of people of African descent in America as outsider, both communally and individually.
AFST 20801 Intensive Language Study: Uganda
Richard Pierce
Working with Dr. Richard Pierce in the Department of Africana Studies, this course offers students the opportunity to research and study the language of Uganda. At the University of Notre Dame, the Department of Africana Studies stands at the center of the study of the African American experience, Africa, and the African Diaspora-the global dispersion of peoples of African descent.
AFST 30204 US Civil War Era, 1848-1877 L. Przybyszewski
TR 11:00a.m. - 12:15p.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept.
This course begins in 1848 and examines the coming of the Civil War, the experience of the war itself, and the period of Reconstruction up to 1877. The emphasis will be on the political, social, cultural, and legal events and decisions that were made by governmental and civilian participants, by men and women, by whites and blacks. Why were so many willing to go to war? What did they believe each side was fighting for? The sectional conflict touched every aspect of American life. In order to understand it fully, we will read not only political speeches, military reports, and judicial decisions, but also poetry, fiction, and private letters. We will examine the beliefs and values of veterans and nurses, of abolitionists and slaveowners, of politicians and voters. We will also consider the way historians evaluate the war and the way in which the public remembers it. The mode of instruction will be a mix of lecture and discussion.
AFST 30205 American Labor History Dan Graff
MWF 12:50p.m. - 1:40p.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept.
This course will examine the history of paid and unpaid labor in the United States from the American Revolution to the near present. We will seek to understand how working people both shaped -- and were shaped by -- the American Revolution, early industrialization, the debates over slavery and free labor culminating in the Civil War and Reconstruction, the rise of big business, the creation of a national welfare state, the Cold War-era repression of the left, and continuing debates over the meanings of work, citizenship, and democracy. Throughout the course, we will devote considerable time to the organizations workers themselves created to advance their own interests, namely the unions and affiliated institutions that have made up the labor movement. We will also pay special attention to the crucial connections between work and identities of class, race, and gender as they evolved over the past two centuries.
AFST 30206 United States Since World War II Rev. T. Blantz
MWF 9:35a.m. - 10:25a.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept
The purpose of this course is to study the political, diplomatic, economic, social, and cultural development of the United States from 1945 through the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Although the military and diplomatic history of World War II will be considered by way of background, the principal topics of investigation will be the Fair Deal Program of President Truman, the Cold War, the Korean Conflict, the Eisenhower Presidency, the New Frontier, Vietnam, President Johnson's Great Society, the Civil Rights Movement, the Nixon years, the social and intellectual climate of this post-war era, and the presidencies of Gerald Ford through George H.W. Bush. There will be a required reading list of approximately six books, two smaller writing assignments, and three examinations.
AFST 30215 Witnessing the 60’s Ben Giamo
MW 11:45a.m. -1:00p.m.
crosslisted w/American Studies Dept
The purpose of this interdisciplinary course is twofold: to examine the social context and cultural change of the sixties, on the one hand, and on the other to explore the various journalistic representations of events, movements, and transformation. Much that was written during the period was ephemeral. There are, however, certain lasting accounts of the sixties by authors who command respect today, writers whose new publications or publications about them get front-page reviews in the New York Times Book Review section. We will focus on the manner in which each writer witnessed the sixties as well as the unique interaction between personal expression, social event, and cultural meaning. We will focus on fresh styles of writing, such as the new journalism popularized by Tom Wolfe, as well as writing that is aimed toward protest, resistance, dislocation, solipsism, and reportage. Major topics for consideration include the counterculture and the movement-a combination of civil rights and anti-war protest. These topics will sharpen our interest in social history, cultural change, politics, foreign affairs, music, literature, documentary film.
AFST 30217 Sport in American History John Soares
MW 3:00p.m. - 4:15p.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept.
Sport, a major part of American entertainment and culture today, has roots that extend back to the colonial period. This course will provide an introduction to the development of American sport, from the horseracing and games of chance in the colonial period through the rise of contemporary sport as a highly commercialized entertainment spectacle. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, we will explore the ways that American sport has influenced and been influenced by economics, politics, popular culture, and society, including issues of race, gender and class. Given Notre Dame's tradition in athletics, we will explore the university's involvement in this historical process.
AFST 30218 Slavery, Captivity & the Company Store in US History Mikaela Larkin
TR 5:00p.m. - 6:15p.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept
What does it mean to be a slave in America? Were African-Americans the only slaves in America? Are indentured servants, captives, or laborers in company towns free? Are they slaves? This course examines slavery and other forms of un-free labor in the United States. Through lectures and discussions, the class will investigate unfree labor in American history-chattel slavery in the South and New England, Puritan captives in French Canada, Indian slave trade in the South and Southwest, indentured servants in Virginia, and company towns in the post-war South and West. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to explore how chattel slavery in America fit into a global context, how modernity was related to slavery, and how the experiences of African-American slaves differed by time and region in the United States. After a broad survey of slavery and unfree labor in the United States, students will be prepared to tackle the following questions: What does it mean to be free in America? What was the impact of slavery and unfree labor on American politics and society?
AFST 30219 Manliness, Slavery, and Racism Culture to 1865 Erin Miller
MW 8:00a.m. – 9:15a.m.
crosslisted w/ History Dept
This course traces the roots of southern American culture by exploring the centrality of the relationships between sex, manliness, and slavery in the development of the US South from 1619 to 1865. By examining how European men viewed their own sexuality and that of European women in contrast to that of African men and women, this course seeks to examine the complex racial and gendered identities at the center of southern culture. The underlying current of the class is to understand the complexity with which racial and gendered identities defined all relationships and culture in the South.
Using primary and secondary sources, we will critically engage the debates about slavery, racism, gender, and class in southern culture. We will reevaluate the historiographic arguments on American racism. We will take the notion of "southern gentlemen" to task, juxtaposing their responsibility as patriarchs to the ugly underbelly of slavery, race, and sexual exploitation. Our efforts in this class will be to understand the contours of the relationships between sexual control, manliness, and racism. We will explore the daily lives of men and women who lived during the time. A variety of perspectives will constitute our sources about slavery, including those of blacks, free and enslaved, as well as planters, abolitionists, women, and yeomen.
AFST 30251 African History Since 1800 Neil Roos
TR 12:30p.m. – 1:45p.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept.
This course will focus on African history from 1800 to the independence movements of the 1960s. In the nineteenth century, new states, economies, and societies emerged in Africa as African peoples developed new relations among themselves and with the rest of the world. With the 'scramble for Africa' of the 1880s, European powers colonized Africa and suppressed many of these processes. In the 1960s, however, self-rule resurged as Africans helped throw off the yoke of colonial rule and form independent nation-states. This course will consider the social, economic and political history of Africa by using case studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo-Zaire), Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa.
AFST 30253 History of South Africa Neil Roos
TR 3:30p.m. – 4:45p.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept.
This course offers an overview of modern South Africa from the perspective of radical social history, a major intellectual tradition in South African studies. It will begin by identifying processes of dispossession, urbanization and proletarianization set in train by South Africa's mineral revolution. It will then look at the clash between imperial and Boer interests, and the South African war. The Union of South Africa in 1910 represented a re-organization of white power, and the course will turn to the experiences of Union for both black and white, including the emergence of African nationalism and other, culturally-located, forms of resistance. The apartheid state was inaugurated in 1948, and the course will examine the consolidation of the state, how it sought to control black and white citizens and subjects, and the accelerating politics of defiance. There will be particular emphasis on Black Consciousness and its role in the 1976 Soweto revolt. By way of conclusion the course will turn to the culture and politics of resistance in the 1980s, up to the initial dismantling of apartheid in 1990.
AFST 30775 Caribbean Diaspora Karen Richman
TR 1:30p.m. - 2:45p.m.
crosslisted w/Latino Studies
This course examines the development of Creole societies in the French, Spanish, Dutch, and British Caribbean in response to colonialism, slavery, migration, nationalism and, most recently, transnationalism. The recent exodus of as much as 20 percent of Caribbean populations to North America and Europe has afforded the rise of new transnational modes of existence. This course will explore the consciousness and experience of Caribbean diasporas through ethnography and history, religion, literature, music, and culinary arts.
AFST 30783 Anthropology of Africa Rahul Oka
crosslisted w/Anthropology Dept. MW 3:00p.m. - 4:15p.m.
Africa is known as the cradle of humanity and has the longest record of "human" activity of any continent. Yet it is also the least understood in terms of its past. The discipline of anthropology has the primary field of study used to understand the development of societies and cultures of Africa. In this course, students will learn and critically apply techniques drawn from biological anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, history and linguistic anthropology for understanding the evolution of human societies within Africa, and the inter-connections between Africa and the rest of the world from the earliest times to the present era. Topics covered in the readings, lectures, practical laboratory work, and assignments will include the beginnings of cultural development (tool-making and social networks), the interactive development of agriculture, pastoralism and foraging, the rise of social complexity, urbanism and states within Africa, colonialism, and post-colonial African states.
AFST 30784 Archaeology of the African Diaspora
Mark Hauser
MW 11:45a.m. – 1:00p.m.
This course is designed to serve as an in-depth undergraduate level introduction to archaeological perspectives on the African Diaspora. In this course, we examine the formation and transformation of the Black Atlantic World beginning with the transatlantic slave trade to the middle of the 19th century through the study of archaeological and historical sources. The emphasis in this course is on English - speaking African America, where the vast majority of archaeological investigations have been undertaken. A major objective of this course is to understand the material world of communities of the African Diaspora within the context of the history and historiography of the Black Atlantic. This course is organized around the following themes: 1) Diaspora and the Atlantic World 2) Material Life of the Diaspora 3) Diverse Communities of the Diaspora 4) Intersections of Race, Class, Gender , and Representation.
AFST 35775 Intermediate Creole Language and Culture
Karen Richman
MW 3:00p.m. - 4:15p.m.
crosslisted w/Latino Studies
This intermediate level course is intended for students who have taken Beginning level Creole. In small-group teaching sessions, students will be prepared for conversational fluency with basic reading and writing skills, emphasizing communicative competence as well as grammatical and phonetic techniques. Our study of Kreyòl is closely linked to our exploration of how the language is tied to Caribbean society and culture.
Evaluation of student achievement and proficiency will be conducted both informally and formally during and at the conclusion of the course. Those looking to develop or improve their language skills are welcome to the class. The program is designed to meet the needs of those who plan to conduct research in Haiti or in the Haitian Diaspora, or who intend to work in a volunteer or professional capacity either in Haiti or with Haitians abroad.
AFST 40105 African-American Poetry & Poetics Ivy Wilson
TR 3:30p.m. - 4:45p.m.
crosslisted w/English Dept
An examination of poetry and poetics by black Americans from the beginnings to the present.
AFST 40106 Women of Color Heidi Ardizzone
crosslisted w/American Studies Dept TR 2:00p.m. – 3:15p.m.
This seminar analyses dominant American beliefs about the significance of race and gender primarily through the focusing lens of the experiences of women of color in the U.S. How did intersecting ideologies of race and gender attempt to define and limit the lives of women of color as well as other American? How have women of color responded to and reinterpreted white American ideas about their identity to develop their own self-defenses and ideologies?
AFST 40107 African American Literature Toni Irving
TR 3:30p.m. - 4:45p.m.
crosslisted w/English Dept
A survey of selected seminal works of African-American Literature.
AFST40108 Our America: African-American Literature
Toni Irving
TR 12:30p.m. - 1:45p.m.
crosslisted w/English Dept
Close readings of various 20th-century African-American literatures, with foci on how "black subjectivity" is created; the relationship between literature, history, and cultural mythology; the dialectic of freedom and slavery in American rhetoric; the American obsession with race; and the sexual ideology and competing representations of domesticity.
AFST 43644 Black Politics in Multiracial America
Dianne Pinderhughes
TR 9:30a.m. – 10:45a.m.
This course undertakes a broad examination of Black Politics in Multiracial America. Racial issues have provoked crises in American politics; changes in racial status have prompted American political institutions to operate in distinctive ways. The course examines the interface of Black Politics with and within the American political system. How successful have Blacks been as they attempted to penetrate the electoral system in the post civil rights era. What conflicts and controversies have arisen as African Americans have sought to integrate the American system of power. Now that the laws have been changed to permit limited integration, should African Americans integrate politically, that is should they attempt to 'deracialize' their political appeals and strategy, with an effort to “crossover politically”; are some approaches such as those of Illinois Senator Barack Obama 'not black enough?' What internal political challenges do African Americans face; some such as the increasing importance of class and socioeconomic factors, as well as gender and sexuality may reshape the definition of the black community. Finally how stable will the past patterns and political organizations and institutions of African American politics be, as America and American politics becomes increasingly multiracial.
AFST 40780 Comparative Slavery Mark Hauser
MW 3:00p.m. – 4:15p.m.
For many Americans, the history of slavery is synonymous with plantations in the Atlantic world. This course seeks to expand our view of Atlantic slaveryby looking to the Ancient World, Africa, Asia and Europe in historic and contemporary contexts.This course examines slavery as a labor system and a social form intimately connected with the political economies and cultural groups within which it arose. It will also examine debates about contemporary forms of bonded labor and slaveryemerging from global encounters today.By examining different types of bonded and unfree labor, such as chattel, domestic, and wage slavery, we will form an inquiry about slavery's relationship to the following:person-hood and social death;the emergence of market economies; systems of differentiation used to maintain the social condition of the enslaved; and power and violence. This course will take an interdisciplinary approach relying on archaeology, anthropology and history for our case studies in understanding this particular social form.
AFST 43216 Between Nature & Culture: The Transformation of American Life
Collin Meissner
TR 11:00a.m. – 12:15p.m.
crosslisted w/American Studies Dept.
All her life Edith Wharton sat on the edge of change. All her life she had one foot in the past and one firmly in the present. Her vision looked ahead to America’s trans-national and cosmopolitan future as much as it found comforts and recognitions in the country’s most provincial past. In her autobiography A Backward Glance (1934), Wharton suggested that the “small society into which [she[ was born was ‘good’ in the most prosaic sense of the term, and its only interest, for the generality of readers, lies in the fact of its total extinction, and for the imaginative few, in the recognition of the moral treasures that went with it.” A rather ambiguous statement to be sure. Wharton’s elegiac lament for the past is always conflicted, both in her fiction and in how she lived her own life- like her friend Henry James and a number of her other acquaintances, Wharton became one of those transnational, cosmopolitan, expatriates who helped shape twentieth-century America. She sat in the midst of a broad and influential group of cultural and intellectual figure whose works addressed, contested, fomented, resisted, and embraced the sweeping social changes America underwent in the period following the conclusion of the Civil War and leading up to the onset of World War I. Topics for discussion will include the idea of cosmopolitanism; constructions of citizenship, of race, of nation; the notion of home and exile; emerging trans-nationalism both individual and national; and political imperialism, particularly through the “new” politics of Theodore Roosevelt. This is not a course on Edith Wharton, but an investigation, which will use Wharton’s writings as a medium through which we will examine some of those cultural changes that revolutionized modern America and changed the world.
AFST 45100 Internship Richard Pierce
AFST Senior Majors only
A capstone of the AFAM supplementary major is the senior project, which may be either a senior internship or senior thesis. Either option provides seniors with an opportunity to reflect upon the larger implications of their course work and, should they desire, to incorporate a service-learning component. A written proposal describing the intended internship must be submitted to the AFAM director for formal approval. If accepted, the student will be assigned a supervisor/advisor and required to write a 10-15 page project summation. The final version of the senior project is due at the end of the term. An oral presentation on the senior project must also be made to the director and advisory committee during the week of final examinations in order to complete degree requirements.
AFST 48100 Thesis Richard Pierce
AFST Senior Majors only
A capstone of the AFAM supplementary major is the senior project, which may be either a senior internship or senior thesis. Either option provides seniors with an opportunity to reflect upon the larger implications of their course work and, should they desire, to incorporate a service-learning component. A written proposal describing the intended thesis must be submitted to the AFAM director for formal approval. If accepted, the student will be assigned a supervisor/advisor and required to write a 30- to 40- page paper for the senior thesis. The final version of the senior project is due at the end of the term. An oral presentation on the senior project must also be made to the director and advisory committee during the week of final examinations in order to complete degree requirements.
AFST 53200 Jim Crow America Richard Pierce
W 1:30p.m. - 4:00p.m.
crosslisted w/History Dept.
"Jim Crow" laws barred African Americans from access to employment and to public places such as restaurants, hotels, and other facilities. In the South especially, Blacks lived in fear of racially motivated violence. The history of Jim Crow encompassed every part of American life, from politics to education to sports. The emergence of segregation in the South began immediately after the Civil War when the formerly enslaved people acted to establish their ownchurches and schools separate from whites. Many southern states tried to limitthe economic and physical freedom of the formerly enslaved by adopting lawsknown as Black Codes. In Jim Crow America, we will study the vast literature that encompasses the origination, sustenance, resistance, and eventual defeat of Jim Crow along with the lingering effects of the organized infrastructure of inequality in America.