AFRC2163 - Creating Race and Nation: African American Thought and Culture since Emancipation

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Creating Race and Nation: African American Thought and Culture since Emancipation
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC2163401
Course number integer
2163
Meeting times
W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM
Level
undergraduate
Description
As jazz composer Duke Ellington once said, African Americans are “something apart” from
mainstream American society, but still “an integral part” of the nation’s identity and history. This course takes up Ellington’s provocation to consider how Black Americans have advanced important ideas about race, citizenship, activism, and culture that offer vital insight into African American and American history alike. Taking a broad view of intellectual history, the course will pair secondary literature with relevant primary
sources from politics, literature, education, and the visual and performing arts. We will explore how, denied full access to political representation, education, and mobility in public space, African Americans have developed innovative and insurgent modes of making their ideas about the world known to a multiracial public. Each week, we will ask: what does it mean to be an intellectual? How are ideas and actions interconnected? What forms can ideas take, and how do they circulate beyond texts? How do these examples help us understand discourse, culture, and activism in our current moment? Across class discussion and written assignments, students will come to appreciate the breadth, multiplicity, and dynamism of African American thought and culture. Together, we will examine the complex ambitions, morals, struggles, and triumphs of African American people to unlock a more profound understanding of past and present.
Course number only
2163
Cross listings
HIST2163401
Use local description
No

AFRC1060 - Race and Ethnic Relations

Status
A
Activity
REC
Section number integer
402
Title (text only)
Race and Ethnic Relations
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
402
Section ID
AFRC1060402
Course number integer
1060
Meeting times
R 3:30 PM-4:29 PM
Level
undergraduate
Description
The course will focus on race and ethnicity in the United States. We begin with a brief history of racial categorization and immigration to the U.S. The course continues by examining a number of topics including racial and ethnic identity, interracial and interethnic friendships and marriage, racial attitudes, mass media images, residential segregation, educational stratification, and labor market outcomes. The course will include discussions of African Americans, Whites, Hispanics, Asian Americans and multiracials.
Course number only
1060
Cross listings
ASAM1510402, LALS1060402, SOCI1060402, URBS1060402
Fulfills
Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
Use local description
No

AFRC1060 - Race and Ethnic Relations

Status
A
Activity
REC
Section number integer
403
Title (text only)
Race and Ethnic Relations
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
403
Section ID
AFRC1060403
Course number integer
1060
Meeting times
R 5:15 PM-6:14 PM
Level
undergraduate
Description
The course will focus on race and ethnicity in the United States. We begin with a brief history of racial categorization and immigration to the U.S. The course continues by examining a number of topics including racial and ethnic identity, interracial and interethnic friendships and marriage, racial attitudes, mass media images, residential segregation, educational stratification, and labor market outcomes. The course will include discussions of African Americans, Whites, Hispanics, Asian Americans and multiracials.
Course number only
1060
Cross listings
ASAM1510403, LALS1060403, SOCI1060403, URBS1060403
Fulfills
Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
Use local description
No

AFRC9003 - Storytelling in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
640
Title (text only)
Storytelling in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
640
Section ID
AFRC9003640
Course number integer
9003
Meeting times
W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM
Level
graduate
Instructors
Kathryn Watterson
Description
This creative writing workshop will focus on how to write a good story whether it's "true" or not. By using both nonfiction and fiction writing techniques, students will ask: What kind of truth are you looking to find? What is visible? What matters that is invisible? What is most important to you and why?
Course number only
9003
Cross listings
ENGL9003640, GSWS9003640, MLA5003640, URBS9003640
Use local description
No

AFRC8001 - The Craft of Dissertation Writing in Africana Studies

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
The Craft of Dissertation Writing in Africana Studies
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
301
Section ID
AFRC8001301
Course number integer
8001
Meeting times
M 10:15 AM-1:14 PM
Level
graduate
Instructors
Keisha-Khan Perry
Description
Black thought, culture, history, socio-economic conditions, and politics worldwide matter. How we tell the stories about the vastness of Black lives in our scholarship matter even more greatly. The course will focus on the craft of writing the dissertation in the interdisciplinary field of Africana Studies with a focus on producing innovative scholarship as emergent scholars. Targeting students who have advanced to doctoral candidacy, the primary intent is to learn from African diaspora scholars who write about writing as well as to admire the writers in our field who craft stories about Black lives that we want to read. We will devote some class time to discussing some prominent writers (Alice Walker, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, bell hooks, Claudia Tate, Binyavanga Wainaina) who have discussed their craft of writing to shine a light on Africa and the diaspora. However, the main aim of the course is to give advanced PhD students the time and physical space to write their dissertations in community with students. In this workshop style course, the focus will be on supporting students through the challenging task of completing dissertations in ways that illustrate their innovative and critical approaches to research and writing.
The course objectives include:
1. To provide advanced doctoral students with the consistent time and physical space to complete at least one chapter of their dissertations.
2. To introduce students to discussions about the craft of writing about Black lives in global contexts.
3. To teach students how to craft detailed outlines and writing plans for significant bodies of work such as a dissertation and a book.
4. To teach how to organize original research data and archival materials to write narratives that give significant attention to those materials.
5. To learn how to balance theoretical engagement with existing scholarship and offering new insights drawn from the dissertation research.
6. To provide students with the tools for processing substantive feedback on the writing and organizing critiques for revision of the dissertation, and how to turn the dissertation into articles and a book.
Prerequisite: Doctoral candidates in the Department of Africana Studies and students who have received the Certificate in Africana Studies who are actively writing the dissertation.
Course number only
8001
Use local description
No

AFRC7705 - The Harlem Renaisssance: Then and Now

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
The Harlem Renaisssance: Then and Now
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC7705401
Course number integer
7705
Meeting times
M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM
Level
graduate
Instructors
Zita C Nunes
Description
In 1925, Alain Locke published The New Negro: an Interpretation, an anthology of literary and artistic works by leading figures associated with a movement in Black culture that would become known as the Harlem Renaissance. This year’s 100-year anniversary of the event has prompted new scholarship and numerous commemorations. This seminar will focus on the Harlem Renaissance and its resonances across time and space by engaging material from the end of the US Reconstruction (1880s) to the present to explore what, when, where, whose, and why the Harlem Renaissance. The syllabus will include poetry, essays, long and short fiction and criticism. Students will work with archival materials, newspapers and periodicals, as well as  film, music,artwork, and photography in exhibition catalogues and local collections. Required coursework will include the presentation of a chapter from a scholarly monograph or article associated with the theme of the course for discussion and a seminar paper, along with weekly assignments. For more information, please visit: https://www.english.upenn.edu/courses/graduate.
Course number only
7705
Cross listings
COML7705401, ENGL7705401, FIGS7705401
Use local description
No

AFRC7060 - Introduction to Africa and African Diaspora Thought

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
Introduction to Africa and African Diaspora Thought
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
301
Section ID
AFRC7060301
Course number integer
7060
Meeting times
R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Level
graduate
Instructors
David K. Amponsah
Description
This course examines the processes by which African peoples have established epistemological, cosmological, and religious systems both prior to and after the institution of Western slavery.
Course number only
7060
Use local description
No

AFRC6971 - Caribbean Thought

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Caribbean Thought
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC6971401
Course number integer
6971
Meeting times
T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Level
graduate
Instructors
Odette Casamayor
Description
In-depth analysis of the black experience in Latin America and the Spanish, French and English-speaking Caribbean, since slavery to the present. The course opens with a general examination of the existence of Afro-descendants in the Americas, through the study of fundamental historical, political and sociocultural processes. This panoramic view provides the basic tools for the scrutiny of a broad selection of literary, musical, visual, performance, and cinematic works, which leads to the comprehension of the different ethical-aesthetic strategies used to express the Afro-diasporic experience. Essential concepts such as negritude, creolite, and mestizaje, as well as the most relevant theories on identity and identification in Latin America and the Caribbean, will be thoroughly examined, in articulation with the interpretation of artistic works. Power, nationalism, citizenship, violence, religious beliefs, family and community structures, migration, motherhood and fatherhood, national and gender identities, eroticism, and sexuality are some of the main issues discussed un this seminar.
Course number only
6971
Cross listings
ENGL7971401, LALS6971401, SPAN6971401
Use local description
No

AFRC6450 - Historical Research and Writing

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
Historical Research and Writing
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
301
Section ID
AFRC6450301
Course number integer
6450
Meeting times
T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM
Level
graduate
Instructors
Heather A Williams
Description
This seminar is suitable for graduate students in any discipline in which historical research may be relevant. We will work with both secondary and primary sources, and students will have the opportunity to visit and undertake research in an archive.
Course number only
6450
Use local description
No

AFRC6400 - Proseminar in Africana Studies

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
Proseminar in Africana Studies
Term
2025C
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
301
Section ID
AFRC6400301
Course number integer
6400
Meeting times
W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM
Level
graduate
Instructors
Keisha-Khan Perry
Description
This course focuses on the historical and cultural relationship between Africans and their descendants abroad.
Course number only
6400
Use local description
No