Professors Taylor (English), Kessler (Political Science), and Creighton (History); Associate Professors Bruce (Religion), Fra-Molinero (Spanish), Eames (Anthropology), Kane (Sociology), Nero (Rhetoric), Carnegie (Anthropology), Chair, Hill (Political Science), Jensen (History), and McClendon (African American Studies and American Cultural Studies); Assistant Professors Williams (Music) and Smith (Education); Mr. Pope.L (Theater)

African American studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to enrich knowledge of the experience of African Americans from the past to the present, both within and beyond the United States. Attention is given to "race" as a critical tool of analysis for explaining the allocation of economic resources, the formation of personal and group identity, and the changing nature of political behavior. Study of African American experiences provides insight into secular cultural practices, intellectual traditions, religious doctrines and practices, and social institutions with attention to issues of class, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

The chair of African American studies provides a list of courses offered each year. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the program, students should 1) consult regularly with the chair or a faculty advisor in African American studies to ensure that their program has both breadth and depth and 2) devise programs of study approved by the chair or a faculty advisor by the fall semester of the junior year.

Thesis advisors should be chosen by each student, in consultation with the chair, according to the subject matter of the thesis.

Major Requirements. Students must complete eleven courses and a thesis. Required courses for the major include Introduction to African American Studies (African American Studies 140A), Interdisciplinary Studies: Methods and Modes of Inquiry (African American Studies 250), a junior–senior seminar, at least one course that has an experiential component, and a senior thesis (African American Studies 457 and/or 458). Moreover, four courses/units that emphasize race as a critical tool of analysis, feminist histories and analyses, research methods and modes of inquiry, and black life outside the United States should be taken from the following list:

African American Studies 162. White Redemption: Cinema and the Co-optation of African American History.
African American Studies/Anthropology/Music 262. Ethnomusicology: African Diaspora.
African American Studies/Spanish s22. Africa in Me: Cultural Transmission in Brazil.

American Cultural Studies 237. Multicultural Education.
American Cultural Studies/Political Science 240. Cultural Politics in African American Studies.
American Cultural Studies/Political Science 339. Africana Thought and Practice.
American Cultural Studies 348. Race and Ethnicity in America.

Anthropology 250. Caribbean Societies.
Anthropology/African American Studies/Music 262. Ethnomusicology: African Diaspora.
Anthropology 335. The Ethnographers Craft.
Anthropology s21. Cultural Production and Social Context, Jamaica.

Education/Sociology 242. Race, Cultural Pluralism, and Equality in American Education.

English 250. The African American Novel.

History 243. African American History.

Music/African American Studies/Anthropology 262. Ethnomusicology: African Diaspora.

Political Science 229. Race and Civil Rights in Constitutional Interpretation.
Political Science 235. Black Women in the Americas.
Political Science/American Cultural Studies 240. Cultural Politics in African American Studies.
Political Science/American Cultural Studies 339. Africana Thought and Practice.

Rhetoric 275. African American Public Address.
Rhetoric 331. Rhetorical Theory and Practice.

Sociology/Education 242. Race, Cultural Pluralism, and Equality in American Education.
Sociology 305. Quantitative Research Methods.
Sociology 306. Qualitative Research Methods.

Spanish/African American Studies s22. Africa in Me: Cultural Transmission in Brazil.

Women and Gender Studies 201. African American Women and Feminist Thought.
Women and Gender Studies 266. Gender, Race, and Science.

To complete the major the remaining courses may be selected from the following list of electives:

African American Studies/Music 239. Black Women in Music.
African American Studies/Music 249. African American Popular Music.
African American Studies 390A. The Harlem Renaissance.

Anthropology 155. Power and Perception: Cinematic Portraits of Africa.

Art 291. Representations of Africa/African Representations.
Art 378. Issues in Contemporary African Popular Culture.

Classical and Medieval Studies 305. Africa and the Classics.

Dance 250. Twentieth-Century American Dance I.

English 395B. Dissenting Traditions in Twentieth-Century American Literature.

History 144. The Social History of the Civil War.
History 261. American Protest in the Twentieth Century.

Music/African American Studies 239. Black Women in Music.
Music 247. Jazz and Blues: History and Practice.
Music/African American Studies 249. African American Popular Music.

Political Science 233. African American Politics.

Religion 255. African American Religious Tradition.

Rhetoric 386. Language and Communciation of Black Americans.

Theater 225. The Grain of the Black Image.
Theater 226. Minority Images in Hollywood Film.

Women and Gender Studies 267. Blood, Genes, and American Culture.

Pass/Fail Grading Option. There are no restrictions on the use of the pass/fail option within the major.

Courses
121X. Music and Metaphor: The Sounds in African American Literature. While African American musical traditions command attention on stages across the world, they have a unique home in African American literature. This course explores Folk, Sacred, Blues, Jazz, and Hip Hop music as aesthetic and socio-political resources for African American authors. Course texts include poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and theory. Authors include: Sterling Plumpp, Toni Morrison, Jayne Cortez, Albert Murray W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Larry Neal, and Ralph Ellison. Students are required to listen to several examples of each musical style. This course is the same as African American Studies 121X. Enrollment is limited to 25. K.Ruffin. New course beginning 2001-2002.

140A. Introduction to African American Studies. This course examines African American history and culture through four themes: fragmentation, exclusion, resistance, and community. Particular attention is given to the diversity of cultures in the African diaspora in the Americas. Enrollment limited to 40. L. Williams.

162. White Redemption: Cinema and the Co-optation of African American History. Since its origins in the early twentieth century, film has debated how to represent black suffering. This course examines one aspect of that debate: the persistent themes of white goodness, innocence, and blamelessness in films that are allegedly about black history and culture. Historical and cultural topics examined in film include the enslavement of Africans, Reconstruction, and the civil rights movement. Some of the films include the mini-series Roots, Mississippi Burning, the four versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Glory, Birth of a Nation, and Rosewood. Particular attention is given to films in the interracial male buddy genre, such as The Defiant Ones, In the Heat of the Night, 48 Hours, and Lethal Weapon. Not open to students who have received credit for African American Studies 160. This course is the same as Rhetoric 162. C. Nero. Cross-listed with Rhetoric and number changed from 160 as of 11/2/01.

165. African American Philosophers. This course focuses on how African American philosophers confront and address philosophical problems. This course is both thematic and problems-oriented. Philosophical problems relative to the Black experience and traditional themes in Western philosophy are foundational. Attention is also given to the motivations and context sustaining African American philosophers. Recommended background: African American Studies 140A and/or Political Science 119. Enrollment is limited to 40. J. McClendon. New course beginning Winter 2002 semester.

201. African American Women and Feminist Thought. African American history, like white American history, omits the struggles and contributions of its women. Using historical perspectives, the individual and collective experiences of African American women are examined. Particular attention is given to developing knowledge and understanding of African American women's 1) experiences of enslavement, 2) efforts at self-definition and self-sufficiency, 3) social and political activism, and 4) forging of Afra-American/multicultural/womanist/feminist thought. Open to first-year students. This course is the same as Women and Gender Studies 201. Staff. Cross-listed with Women and Gender Studies as of 11/02/01.

212. Black Lesbian and Gay Literatures. This course examines black lesbian and gay literatures in English from Africa, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Students are introduced to critical and historical approaches for analyzing literature about black queer sensibilities. Writers may include James Baldwin (U.S.), Samuel R. Delany (U.S.), Melvin Dixon (U.S.), Owen Dodson (U.S.), Thomas Glave (Jamaica), Jewelle Gomez (U.S.), James Earl Hardy (U.S.), E. Lynn Harris (U.S.), Essex Hemphill (U.S.), Isaac Julien (U.K.), Randal Kenan (U.S.), Audre Lorde (U.S.), Yulisa Amadu Maddy (Cameroun), Patricia Powell (Jamaica), Anne Allen Shockley (U.S.), Assoto Saint (Haiti), H. Nigel Thomas (St. Vincent/Canada), Wallace Thurman (U.S.), John A. Walker (U.S.), and Shay Youngblood (U.S.). Open to first year students. This course is the same as English 212. C. Nero. New course and cross-listing beginning fall 2002-2003.

239. Black Women in Music. Angela Davis states, "Black people were able to create with their music an aesthetic community of resistance, which in turn encouraged and nurtured a political community of active struggle for freedom." This course examines the role of black women as critics, composers, and performers who challenge externally defined controlling images. Topics include: black women in the music industry; black women in music of the African diaspora; and black women as rappers, jazz innovators, and musicians in the classical and gospel traditions. This course is the same as Music 239 and Women and Gender Studies 239. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30. L. Williams.

249. African American Popular Music. When Americans stared at their black-and-white television sets in the early 1950s, they saw only a white world. As with music, variety shows primarily spotlighted the talent of white performers. Change came slowly, and during the late 1950s American Bandstand introduced viewers to such African American artists as Dizzy Gillespie and Chubby Checker. Over the last two decades, however, the emergence of music videos has created the need for a critical and scholarly understanding of the emerging forces of African American music, dance, and drama in the United States from the 1950s to the present. This course is the same as Music 249. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 40. L. Williams.

250. Interdisciplinary Studies: Methods and Modes of Inquiry. Interdisciplinarity involves more than a meeting of disciplines. Practitioners stretch methodological norms and reach across disciplinary boundaries. Through examination of a single topic, this course introduces students to interdisciplinary methods of analysis. Students examine what practitioners actually do and work to become practitioners themselves. Prerequisite(s): any two courses in women and gender studies, African American studies, or American cultural studies. This course is the same as American Cultural Studies 250 and Women and Gender Studies 250. Enrollment limited to 40. R. Herzig.

262. Ethnomusicology: African Diaspora. This introductory course is a survey of key concepts, problems, and perspectives in ethnomusicological theory drawing upon the African diaspora as a cross-cultural framework. This course focuses on the social, political, and intellectual forces of African culture that contributed to the growth of ethnomusicology from the late nineteenth century to the present. This course is the same as Music 262 and Anthropology 262. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. L. Williams.

360. Independent Study. Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair is required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester. Staff.

390A. The Harlem Renaissance. This course examines the extraordinary creativity in the arts and in other aspects of intellectual life by African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s. Although this cultural phenomenon was national in scope, most scholars agree that New York City, and Harlem in particular, was its epicenter. Possible topics include: the artist as iconoclast; contributions to the theater and the performing arts; racial and cultural identity in literature; the formation of a community of black critical theorists; the role in promoting the arts by political movements such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Marcus Garveys Universal Negro Improvement Association; the visual arts and racial identity; and the New Negro Movement, campus revolts, and the "first wave" of demands for black studies in the college and university curriculum. Prerequisite(s): one of the following: English 250, Rhetoric 275, or History 243. Enrollment limited to 15. This course is the same as Rhetoric 391C. C. Nero. Cross-listed with Rhetoric as of 11/02/01.

399B. Junior–Senior Seminar in Ethnomusicology. This course trains students in ethnomusicological methods by encouraging the development of critical and analytical tools of inquiry necessary for fieldwork and research. The course focuses on the social, cultural, political, and intellectual forces that shaped the growth of ethnomusicology in the United States and abroad. Students are expected to undertake an innovative research project on a theoretical approach to study music in its cultural and historical context. Students critically examine the music, current philosophical thoughts on ethnomusicology, and their own personal interviews with musicians. Prerequisite(s): one of the following: African American Studies/Music 249, African American Studies/ Anthropology/Music 262, or Music 232. This course is the same as Music 399B. Enrollment limited to 15. L. Williams.

457, 458. Senior Thesis. The research and writing of an extended essay or report, or the completion of a creative project, under the supervision of a faculty member. Students register for African American Studies 457 in the fall semester and for African American Studies 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both African American Studies 457 and 458. Staff.

Short Term Units
s21. Writing a Black Environment. This unit studies the response of black writers and intellectuals of the Spanish-speaking world to issues related to the natural environment. In countries and regions of Afro-hispanic majority the presence of the oil industry has brought serious challenges to notions of economic progress, human rights, and national sovereignty, as well as individual and communal identity. Writers from Esmeraldas, Ecuador, and Equatorial Guinea chronicle the contradictory discourses present in their societies between modernity, tradition, the idea of progress, and the degradation of the ecosystem. Recommended background: Spanish 202. Enrollment limited to 15. This unit is the same as Environmental Studies and Spanish s21. B. Fra-Molinero. New unit beginning in Short Term 2002.

s22. Africa in Me: Cultural Transmission in Brazil. Brazil is second only to Nigeria in population of people of African descent. Brazil, along with Cuba, has the longest history of slavery in the Western world in modern times. Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, and its long history continues to have a decisive effect upon contemporary social and political institutions. This unit examines the impact of slavery in modern Brazil by examining African retentions in history, culture, and religion. This unit is the same as Spanish s22. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 60. B. Fra-Molinero, C. Nero, Staff.

s50. Independent Study. Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair is required. Students may register for no more than one independent study during a Short Term. Open to first-year students. Staff.