AFRC710 - THE POLITICS OF AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA AFTER WORLD WAR II

This course provides the opportunity for students to investigate the relationship between the emergence of African peoples as historical subjects and their location within specific geopolitical and economic circumstances. Topics vary.


FALL 2017: FASCISM AND RACISM: A LOVE STORY- What is the relationship between fascism and racism in modern politics, and how have black political thinkers and organizations understood this relationship? This graduate level course is designed to familiarize students with the historical and contemporary literature on fascism as a phenomena of modern politics, and the importance of racial politics and ideologies to its constitution. Students will become familiar with the contributions of Black political actors, organizations and thinkers in Europe, Africa, Asia and the New World to fascism's defeat in the 1920's and 1930's, as well as more contemporary efforts to curb more contemporary fascist movements, regimes and aesthetics in late modernity. Antonio Gramsci, Robert Paxton, Michael Mann, C.L.R. James, George Padmore, Aime Cesaire, Suzanne Cesaire and Hannah Arendt are among the thinkers, theorists and activists students will encounter in this course. The overarching aim of his course is to identify fascism in both historical and contemporary contexts as a very specific form of political organization and rule, and its interrelationship with racism, nationalism and xenophobia.