Department of Africana Studies
Summer & Fall 2008 Course Descriptions
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AFST 30274 Slavery in the Atlantic World (Summer 2008)
Denise Challenger
MW 1:15-3:45 p.m.
This survey course explores the nature and meaning of the ‘Atlantic world’.
Covering the fifteenth century to the nineteenth century, it interrogates the
role of coerced African labour in the birth of the Atlantic world. Created as a
consequence of the Columbian encounter, a main focus will be on the ways in
which the common historical thread of trans-Atlantic slavery connected the
economies, cultures and societies that bordered the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover,
it explores how constructions of gender, race and sexuality were central to the
formation of societies in the ‘Atlantic world’. Thematically this course
explores, in a variety of geographical sites, the varied and nuanced claims to
humanity that Afro descended peoples displayed against the systematic attempts
to dehumanize and exploit their bodies. Africans throughout various communities
in West Africa, North America, Brazil and the British Caribbean are the primary
focal points of this course.
AFST 43701 Psychology of Race (Summer 2008)
Donald Pope Davis, Roger Brooks
TR 1:15-3:45 p.m.
AFST 46100 Directed Readings
Karen Richman
AFST 10401 Introduction to Jazz
Larry Dwyer
MWF 12:50p.m.-1:40p.m.
A music appreciation course requiring no musical background and no prerequisites. General coverage of the history, various styles, and major performers of jazz, with an emphasis on current practice.
AFST 20082 Intro to Africana Studies
Jacquetta Page
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 glgobal 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 20109 Literature of Sport
Matthew Benedict
MW 8:00a.m. – 9:15a.m.
Sports and athletics have held prominent roles in human societies since the beginnings of civilization. Across centuries, nation states have used athletic competition for a variety of purposes, from paying homage to distant gods to demonstrating superiority over neighboring tribes/cultures. And the individuals, the "warriors", who excel on those "fields of battle" are venerated as heroes, champions, "gods".In this course, we'll look at a variety of literature (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, film, broadcasts of athletic events, etc.) related to sports and athletics. From depictions of wrestlers on temple walls in Ancient Egypt to Grantland Rice's New York Herald Tribune Four Horsemen article to podcasts of ESPN's SportsCenter, our investigation of the literature of sport will cover a range of topics - race, gender, class, globalization, and the purposes and functions of athletic competition, to name a few - including the rise of the "super star" athlete as a "god".Required work: quizzes, two essays, midterm, final examination.
AFST 20110 Real Contemp. Novel: American Conflict
John Hess
MWF 1:55p.m. – 2:45p.m.
Many "Contemporary Fiction" classes conclude with works published around the time that you were born in the mid to late 1980s. This course focuses on novels published during the decade in which you are living and examines the interpretive difficulties raised by such works. Without being able to rely on an established history of scholarly criticism or their place among the so-called "great books" of civilization, the reader of contemporary novels must actively consider why these works are worth studying as well as how they function. The major aims of this course are to introduce you to these exciting novels and to provide you with the critical and interpretive framework for determining what contemporary literature is and why it matters. We will focus on eight novels and novellas examining the intersections between self and society and between literary art and the popular cultures of film, television, hip-hop, rock, and comic books.Readings include novels and novellas by Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Lethem, David Markson, and Toni Morrison. The course also includes a screening of the film adaptation of Foer's Everything is Illuminated. Because this course is intended for non-majors, each unit will include introductions to the basic tools of literary study including close reading, how to write a literary argument, how to incorporate secondary criticism and theory, and the basic principles of film and television. Course requirements include two 5-7 page papers and one 7-10 page paper.
AFST 20111 Chicago in Words
Todd Thorpe
MWF 11:45a.m. –12:35p.m.
Early twentieth-century Chicago was famous for its railways and stockyards, jazz and gangsters. The city saw the creation of great industrial fortunes and the birth in 1905 of the Industrial Workers of the World. The literature taken up in this class brings the dynamic contradictions of the Chicago experience to life. We will look at work by Jane Addams, Nelson Algren, Sherwood Anderson, Gwendolyn Brooks, John Dos Passos, Carl Sandburg, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Ward, and Richard Wright, covering a range of literary expression from impassioned journalism, to poetry, novels, and drama. We will consider the relation of modernism to realism. We will look at the ways in which Chicago capitalism altered nature, challenged traditional forms of identity, and created new forms of urban community. We will spend a week exploring Chicago's jazz and blues, while we will also look at the 1932 gangster film Scarface, screenplay by Chicago journalist and Oscar winner Ben Hecht. Chicago is a city of tremendous vitality and shocking brutality that has reinvented itself time and again, and the writers we will read have taken up this task of urban invention with a shared urgency and a wide range of voices. Course requirements: Active class participation, short response papers, creative responses (poems), a class presentation of a scene from Big White Fog by Theodore Ward, and an 8-10 page paper. Many "Contemporary Fiction" classes conclude with works published around the time that you were born in the mid to late 1980s. This course focuses on novels published during the decade in which you are living and examines the interpretive difficulties raised by such works. Without being able to rely on an established history of scholarly criticism or their place among the so-called "great books" of civilization, the reader of contemporary novels must actively consider why these works are worth studying as well as how they function. The major aims of this course are to introduce you to these exciting novels and to provide you with the critical and interpretive framework for determining what contemporary literature is and why it matters. We will focus on eight novels and novellas examining the intersections between self and society and between literary art and the popular cultures of film, television, hip-hop, rock, and comic books.
Readings include novels and novellas by Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Lethem, David Markson, and Toni Morrison. The course also includes a screening of the film adaptation of Foer's Everything is Illuminated. Because this course is intended for non-majors, each unit will include introductions to the basic tools of literary study including close reading, how to write a literary argument, how to incorporate secondary criticism and theory, and the basic principles of film and television. Course requirements include two 5-7 page papers and one 7-10 page paper.
AFST 20112 American Novel
John Staud
MWF 9:35a.m. -10:25a.m.
We will read, discuss, and study selected novels of significant importance within the American literary tradition. As we explore these novels within their historical and cultural context, we will consider the various reasons for their place within the canon of American literature. Indeed, we will scrutinize the very nature of this literary canon and self-consciously reflect on the inevitably arbitrary nature of this, or any, reading list. Even so, we will see, I hope, that these authors share deep engagement with ideas and themes common to American literature and do so, through their art, in ways that both teach and delight.
Required Texts: Moby-Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Awakening, The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, The Old Man and the Sea, The Bluest Eye
AFST 20201 Amer. Men, Amer. Women
Heidi Ardizzone
TR 3:30p.m. -4:45p.m.
What does it mean to be male or female in America? How different are our ideas about gender from those of other cultures? This course will focus on the 20th century and look at the origins and development of masculine and feminine roles in the United States. How much have they changed over time and what aspects have been retained? We will explore the ways that cultural images, political changes, and economic needs have shaped the definition of acceptable behavior and life choices based on gender. Topics will range from Victorian ideals through the Jazz Age and war literature to movie Westerns, '50s television families, and '60s youth culture; and into recent shifts with women's rights, extreme sports, and talk shows.
AFST 20600 Comparative Politics
Andrew Gould
MW 8:30a.m. -9:20a.m.
In this course students learn to think more clearly about politics, especially about how and why political life takes place as it does around the world. We study why nation-states are the dominant form of political organization today and why nation-states differ, especially in their economic and political development. Why are some countries democracies? Why are others dictatorships? Why do political movements participate in elections, start civil wars, or engage in terrorism? We develop answers to these questions by focusing on the experiences of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China, Iran, India, Mexico, and South Africa.
AFST 20703 Intro to Social Problems
Mim Thomas
MWF 11:45a.m. -12:35p.m.
Analysis of selected problems in American society such as crime, narcotic addiction, alcoholism, delinquency, racial and ethnic conflict, prostitution, and others. Discussions, debates, films, tapes, and readings.
AFST 30204 Era of U.S. Civil War 1848-1877
Mike DeGuccio
MW 4:30p.m. -5:45p.m.
Through intensive reading and writing students will explore the social and cultural history of America's most costly war. We will focus on various topics as they relate to the war: antebellum origins, religion, gender, Lincoln's reasons for waging war, dead bodies, freedmen's families, black soldiers, and the uses of war memory. This will not be a guns-and-generals-smell-the-smoke course, though knowledge of military matters can be helpful. We will ask and try to answer who really "won" and "lost" the war.
AFST 30216 The US, 1900-1945
Thomas Blantz
MWF 9:35a.m. -10:25a.m.
The purpose of this course is to study the political, diplomatic, economic, social, and cultural development of the United States from 1900 to 1945. Major topics will include the background for Progressive reform, the New Nationalism and New Freedom administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the diplomacy of the early 20th century, the causes and results of World War I, the Republican administrations of the 1920s, the New Deal administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, isolationism and neutrality in the inter-war period, and the American home front during World War II. There will be a required reading list of approximately seven books, two shorter writing assignments, and three major examinations, including the final.
AFST 30217 Sport in American History
John Soares
MW 11:45a.m. -1:00p.m.
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 30277 “Mixed Race America”
Heidi Ardizzone
TR 12:30p.m. -1:45p.m.
Despite popular images of American as a "melting" both of races and ethnicities, our institutions, values, and practices have often tried to create or maintain spatial and social distance between groups defined as racially different. This course will explore that ways in which Americans have transgressed those boundaries or found other ways of interacting across cultural lines, primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries. We will examine popular cultural perceptions of people of mixed ancestry, their social experiences, the development of various mixed-ancestry communities, and historical attempts to limit interracial socializing, relationships, and marriage. These issues were and are deeply imbedded in debates over the meaning of race, gender expectations and ideas about sex and sexuality. We will also pay close attention to how minority communities have understood people of mixed ancestry in the United States, and how mixed-race identities intersect with African American, Native American, Asian, White, and Latino identities.
AFST 30575 Islam & Modernity
Asma Afsaruddin
TR 11:00a.m. -12:15p.m.
Islam and its compatibility with modernity is a much-debated issue in the contemporary period. The course will address this timely topic and discuss the most important "hot-button" issues involved: political Islam, democracy, pluralism, rights of women, and secularism. The historical contexts in which these issues have been debated will also receive attention. What internal resources exist within Islamic thought which are being drawn upon by modernists to make a strong case for an essential compatibility between Islam, modernity, and democracy, for example? Is democracy (or Islam, for that matter) a monolithic concept? Students will be expected to actively take part in discussions centered around such questions, the assigned readings, and class lectures. Prior exposure to at least one class on Islam or the Middle East is strongly recommended.
AFST 30603 Contentious Political Movements
Tin-bor Hui
TR 5:00p.m. -6:15p.m.
This course analyzes prominent resistance movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We first examine the conceptual tools of contentious politics, domination and resistance, state-society relations, and violent vs. nonviolent strategies of resistance. We then examine various nationalist independence movements, revolutionary movements, communist insurgencies, civil wars, and peaceful democracy movements. "To better understand resistance movements from the perspectives of leaders and participants, we will watch a series of documentaries and read the (auto-) biographies of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama, Wei Jingshen, and others." In analyzing democracy movements, we will further examine what the third wave of democracy entails, why some movements succeed while others fail, how new democracies should reconcile with past dictators, to what extent constitutional engineering can solve past problems and facilitate successful transitions, and why some new democracies remain fragile.
AFST 30604 Modern Pol. Thought
Eileen Botting
TR 2:00p.m. -3:15p.m.
In this course, students will study the focal ideas and arguments that helped shape the development of Western modernity--and its notions of freedom, equality, citizenship, rights, democracy, nationality, justice, and cosmopolitanism--through close readings of classic texts of European and American political thought. Hobbes's Leviathan, Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Rousseau's First Discourse, Second Discourse, and Social Contract, plus several historical and political essays by Kant will offer students the opportunity to understand the evolution of the vastly influential "social contract" tradition and the variants of democracy that have sprung from it. In addition, we will read contemporary works of political theory by John Rawls, Anthony Appiah, and Martha Nussbaum that both build on and move beyond the early modern social contract tradition in order to engage pressing issues of global justice that are inflected by race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sex, and gender. Students will participate in an on-campus conference on "Cosmopolitanism: Gender, Race, Class and the Quest for Global Justice," which will feature Appiah and Nussbaum as keynote speakers.
AFST 30606 Black Chicago Politics
Dianne Pinderhughes
TR 9:30a.m. -10:45a.m.
This course introduces students to the vast, complex and exciting dimensions of Black Chicago Politics. First, institutional structures, geographic distribution and population characteristics will inform students about the sociodemograpic background of the African American population in the city. Second, the course explores varying types of political expression that have developed over more than a century, inclulding electoral politics, mass movements, partisan politics; it will also examine the impact of the Chicago machine, and of the Washington era on the political and economic status of African Americans in the city. Third, public policy developments in housing, education and criminal justice will be discussed. Fourth, the course also compares Black political standing with other racial and ethnic groups in the city. Finally, the course will introduce students to the long tradition of social science research centered on the city of Chicago.
AFST 30650 Pol. of Southern Africa
Peters Walshe
TR 3:30p.m. -4:45p.m.
Having opened with a survey of the region and the political transitions that brought South Africa's neighboring territories to independence, the course focuses on the dominant regime - the Republic of South Africa. After outlining the political history of apartheid, the phenomenon of Afrikaner nationalism, the rise of African nationalism and the liberation movements, attention turns to the country's escalating turmoil in the 1980s and resulting political transition of the 1990s. The semester closes with an analysis of South Africa's post-apartheid political and economic prospects within the broader context of globalization.
AFST 30677 Political Psychology
Darren Davis
TR 11:00a.m. -12:15p.m.
Political Psychology is a multidisciplinary field of study concerned with how psychological processes are influenced by and inform political behavior of individual citizens, groups, political leaders, and behavior within political institutions. This class explores some of the major lines of political psychology theory and research, and their application to political life. These applications include the role of personality in the formation of political attitudes and democratic values; racism, stereotyping, ethnocentrism, and nationalism; the influences of emotion and cognition on voting decisions; social identity theory; information processing and political decision making; inter-group conflict; political intolerance; and methodological approaches in political psychology.This course will attempt to answer the following questions: What is racism and where does it come from? Is political intolerance an automatic response to objective stimuli or is intolerance functional? To what extent are political attitudes and values ingrained in personality? Is the support for democracy, political trust, and support for the political system linked to personality? How do individuals utilize and process information in political campaigns? Is negative campaigning effective? How did a heightened sense of fear and anxiety, following the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, influence political decisions, the support for President Bush's policies, and intolerance toward social groups? How does social group identity form? Does linking or identifying with one group leads to the rejection of other groups? What motivates George Bush? To what extent are personality theories useful in explaining the behavior of presidents and other political leaders? What are the political psychological underpinnings of inter-group conflict, mass violence, and genocide? Is the truth and reconciliation movement an effective means of recovering from genocide and violence?
AFST 30721 Critical Approaches to Anth. Of Race
M. Hauser
MW 11:45a.m. -1:00p.m.
While issues of Race and Racism are pervasive in our society, most people know surprisingly little about the social, biological, political, and historical factors at play. Race is simultaneously avery real social construct and a very artificial biological one. How can this be? Why do we care so much about classifications/divisions of humanity? This course will tackle the Anthropology of Race from a critical perspective. We will learn about the biology of human difference and similarity, how societies view such similarities and differences, how our social and scientific histories create these structures, and why this knowledge is both extremely important and too infrequently discussed.
AFST 30749 Anthropology of Race
Augustin Fuentes
MW 11:45a.m. -1:00p.m.
While issues of Race and Racism are pervasive in our society, most people know surprisingly little about the social, biological, political, and historical factors at play. Race is simultaneously a very real social construct and a very artificial biological one. How can this be? Why do we care so much about classifications/divisions of humanity? This course will tackle what Race is and what it is not from an anthropological perspective. We will learn about the biology of human difference and similarity, how societies view such similarities and differences, how our social and scientific histories create these structures, and why this knowledge is both extremely important and too infrequently discussed.
AFST 30785 Caribbean Historiography
M. Hauser
MW 3:00p.m. -4:15p.m.
This class will introduce students to major events in Caribbean History and the various ways in which these histories have been represented. This course will present a picture of the Caribbean very different from that held by many North Americans. For 500 years, this region has been the site of encounters and clashes among Native Americans, Europeans, Africans, and Asians. For three centuries Europe's leading states fought each other to control these islands, which were the most valuable real estate in the Atlantic world. At the same time Dutch, English, French and Spanish colonists imported millions of enslaved men, women, and children from Africa to work on the sugar and coffee plantations that made the region so profitable for its masters. Supported by racism and colonialism, plantation slavery left its mark on the Caribbean long after emancipation and independence. We will be emphasizing recent, representative texts, monographs and essays but placing them in the context of early research.
AFST 40108 Our America: African-Amer. Lit
Toni Irving
TR 2:00p.m. -3:15p.m.
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 40111 Southern Fiction
Valerie Sayers
MW 4:30p.m. -5:45p.m.
Readings in twentieth century southern fiction from 1900 - 1960, including Kate Chopin, Jean Toomer, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, and Eudora Welty. We will examine both the recurring subjects of the Jim Crow era¿¿"sin, sex, and segregation," in the old Southern phrase¿¿and the stylistic innovations of the writers. We'll pay special attention to contemporary criticism that explores the period from historical, political, and cultural perspectives.
AFST 40208 Men, Women & Work
Ben Giamo
TR 2:00p.m. -3:15p.m.
The purpose of this interdisciplinary seminar is to examine the conditions of extreme poverty and homelessness within the broader context of American culture and society. In order to confront the nature of these conditions, this seminar will draw upon insights from literature, history, documentary nonfiction, and the social sciences. We will focus on the degree of permanence and change in our approach to both traditional and contemporary forms of the social problem. In addition, the causes of extreme poverty and homelessness will be explored, as well as the various cultural representations that work to organize social perceptions of the situation.
There will be an experiential or community service learning dimension to the seminar as well. All students are required to make at least 10 weekly visits to either the Center for the Homeless or the Hope Rescue Mission in South Bend (30 hours), and complete a systematic documentary journal.
AFST 40275 Gandhi’s India
Jayanta Sengupta
TR 2:00p.m. -3:15p.m.
The dominant figure in India's nationalist movement for nearly thirty years, M. K. "Mahatma" Gandhi has also been the twentieth century's most famous pacifist, and a figure of inspiration for peace and civil rights movements throughout the world. This course offers an examination of Gandhi and the nature of his unconventional and often controversial politics. It charts Gandhi's careeragainst the background of events in London, South Africa, and India. Examines the evolution and practical application of his ideas and techniques of non-violent resistance, and his attitudes toward the economy, society and state. Gandhi's influence on Indian politics and society is critically assessed and his reputation as the "apostle of non-violent revolution" examined in the light ofdevelopments since his death in 1948. Some of the questions that will be discussed are: how far did the distinctive character of Gandhian politics derive from his absolute commitment to India's nationalist struggle? Was his success due to the force and originality of his political ideas and hisadvocacy of nonviolent action? Can his achievements be explained by political wiliness and pragmatism, or by willingness to embark on new experiments with the truth? Though helpful, a prior knowledge of Indian history is not required for this course.
AFST 40705 Men, Women & Work
Sophie White
MW 11:45a.m. -1:00p.m.
Why do Walmart's current advertising campaigns idealize the 'stay-at-home mom'? Conversely, why does Congress require that mothers on welfare be sent out to work? This course will introduce students to a broad view of American social history that foregrounds the gendered aspects of work and asks students to examine the meaning of work in American history from the colonial period to the 21st century. This broad historical perspective is especially crucial to the examination of the construction of current beliefs about work in the United States since changing gender ideologies dictated the work experiences of large race- and class-defined segments of the population. On one level, this approach allows for the recovery of women and girls' contributions to the formal and informal economies, including their work activities within the household. Male work practices will be similarly illuminated through a gender studies approach. Hence, an overarching purpose of the course will be to explore the fluidity and instability of those conceptions of work that were applied alternately to masculine as opposed to feminine occupations, just as they were alternately applied to white versus non-white, free versus enslaved, and public versus domestic activities.
AFST 45100 Internship
Dianne Pinderhughes
TBA
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 46100 Directed Readings
Dianne Pinderhughes
TBA
This is a specialized opportunity for a student to design a readings course with a professor on a specific topic of academic interest. A research paper is required at the end of the semester. The professor directing the readings will establish lectures and other meeting arrangements.
AFST 48100 Thesis
Dianne Pinderhughes
TBA
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.