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Courses Fall 2011Undergraduate Courses
AFASC3930: Section 001 This seminar will explore the ways in which African American men are represented and theorized through a range of cultural, historical, and political texts. I am particularly interested in literary and filmic portrayals of black men: from the "extravagant masculinity" of David Walker's Appeal (1829) to how young black men are socialized in and through such televisions shows as The Wire and the popular fictions of E. Lynn Harris. In looking at both canonical and less-studied texts, we will deconstruct notions of genre and, especially, narrativity. How do black men tell their individual and collective stories? How do they contest the false parameters of social protest by enacting a fuller sense of black interiority? What is the relationship between masculinities and sexualities? How does gender function as an analytical category through which to understand race? Course requirements: mandatory attendance and class participation; bi-weekly use of CourseWorks discussion board; optional class presentation; one ten to fifteen page essay This course examines a central genre in the African American literary tradition: historical fiction. We read novels and short stories from the genre's foundations in the 19th century to the present, also comparing this fiction to several films and paintings. We'll read a range of sub-genres, including the neo-slave narrative, historiographic meta-fiction, the short-story cycle, the romance, science fiction and fictional autobiography. Authors may include Frederick Douglass, Charles Chesnutt, Arna Bontemps, Ralph Ellison, Margaret Walker, Gayl Jones, Ishmael Reed, Octavia Butler, Alex Haley and Toni Morrison. We'll discuss uses of history to construct national identities and ideologies, to protest slavery and segregation, to critique traditional historiography, and to create breaks and continuities between the past and the present. Why have so many African American writers turned to history as sources for their fiction? Why did they reinvent history through fiction? How should we understand the combination of research with imaginary elements? How did they define their narratives? How should we? AFASC3930: Section 003 The city of Chicago is arguably the most researched urban laboratory in the United States. This course will examine the history, contemporary conditions, experiences, and cultural worlds of African Americans in the city once known as the “Promised Land”. We will begin our exploration of Chicago from the great migration of the early 20th century and proceed through the times sociologically assessing the attitudes, experiences and social worlds of Chicago’s Black population. AFASC3930: Section 004 Although the island of Hispaniola comprises both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the difference in their sociopolitical landscape is striking. The aim of the seminar is to understand the root of such sociopolitical difference by comparing and contrasting the historical and social forces that have shaped the cultural practices and political organization of these two Caribbean societies. The comparison and contrast approach hopes to elaborate the unique dimensions of Haitian and Dominican cultures while emphasizing the similarities that they inherited from colonialism and post colonialism. We shall see that the central difference consists in the fact that Haitian society operates mainly according to an African-based cosmology whereas the Dominican Republic has been shaped by a mestizo and Eurocentric cosmology. Topics to be investigated this semester include: colonization and plantation slavery; struggles for independence and sovereignty; U.S. occupation and dictatorship; music, religion, popular culture and the impact of globalization. AFASC3936: Section 001 This course examines the rich and complex history of Pan-African and international thoughts in the twentieth century through the works of African, Afro-American, and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals. From the wake of European colonization of Africa to the end of South African Apartheid, the eventful century revealed black intellectuals' diverse and contentious methods, theories, and arguments designed to combat colonial rule, labor exploitation, and white supremacy. The overall aim of the course is for students to gain structured, critical, but appreciative knowledge of the variety of Pan-African intellectuals, their connections and contributions to the unfolding world events, and their ongoing debates as to what constitutes the basis of Pan-Africanisms and what relationship black people of the world have with one another. The readings focus on primary sources in addition to recent studies and contemporary commentaries relevant to the weekly topics Graduate CoursesAFASG4080: Section 001 This course introduces students to central questions and debates in the fields of African American/African Diasporan Studies, and it explores the various interdisciplinary efforts to address them. The seminar is designed to provide an interdisciplinary foundation and familiarize students with a number of methodological approaches. Toward this end we will have a number of class visitors/guest lecturers drawn from members of IRAAS's Core and Affiliated Faculty. Graduate Pro-Seminar AFASG4080: Section 002 This graduate-level seminar examines memory in African American literature and culture. We will discuss key concepts and methods in the study of memory, and explore theories of historical consciousness, collective memory, counter-memory, heroism, heritage, myth, trauma, marginalization, nostalgia, comedy and tragedy. Which pasts loom largest in black literature? How do black writers remember the Haitian Revolution, slavery, Emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement? What are these writers’ purposes in summoning the past? Can memory be a form of social and political action? How are memory’s symbols adapted to the present’s needs? We will consider memory’s use for a range of purposes, including social activism, and we will think about memory in terms of loss and recovery, haunting and exorcism, burden and inspiration. We also will consider whether literary form shapes memory’s expression and examine the particular characteristics displayed in drama, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, film and visual culture. Students will work towards a research paper in their particular area of interest. AFASG4080: Section 003 Through a close reading of Wilson's plays supplemented by readings in religious theory, African and African American religions, the African American conjure tradition and drama criticism, this course will explore August Wilson's fascinating quest to survey the landscape of African American spirituality, valorize its manifold expressions and seek its meaning for America today. AFASG4080: Section 004 This course will engage the art of the accomplished, succinct statement in Afro-American and African Diasporic literature, cinema and society. This course is born out of the explicit desire to witness more black cast and black directed works, particularly in the genre of short film. It exposes the under-explored relationship between short stories and short film. The class projects encourage multiple literacies, across new media technologies, and equally attend to theory and practice. Course texts will include Es'kia Mphahlele's "Down the Quiet Street," Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker, James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues", Spike Lee's Iron Mike Tyson, Tamika Guishard's Blind Date and Kanye West's Runaway. AFASG4080: Section 005 "The problem of the twentieth century," W.E.B. du bois famously observed, "is the problem of the color line." This seminar will examine the implications of that insight through the theories of racial and social formations in US and world history. AFASG4520: Section 001 This seminar examines the intersection of race, gender and nation in the formation of hierarchical social systems and their legitimating ideologies. A leading premise of this course is that racial ideologies are, foundationally, claims about the heritability of socially produced and imagined difference – claims that muster, mimic and articulate notions of difference associated within the wider problematic of political subjectivity and direct attention to the symbolic and structural organization of modern, hierarchical social systems. AFASG4990: Section 001 This course examines research and writing on race/ethnicity and social difference. Each week, a set of readings will be explored from the perspective of enlivening our understanding of race and ethnic relations—and, of social difference generally. The course is intended to assist graduate students in their development of a proposal of research. |
