AFRC6020 - Stereotype Threat, Impostor Phenomenon, and African Americans

Status
X
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Stereotype Threat, Impostor Phenomenon, and African Americans
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC6020401
Course number integer
6020
Meeting times
CANCELED
Meeting location
NRN 00
Level
graduate
Instructors
Ufuoma Abiola
Description
This course critically examines stereotype threat and impostor phenomenon as they relate to African Americans. Both stereotype threat and impostor phenomenon negatively affect African Americans. The apprehension experienced by African Americans that they might behave in a manner that confirms an existing negative cultural stereotype is stereotype threat, which usually results in reduced effectiveness in African Americans' performance. Stereotype threat is linked with impostor phenomenon. Impostor phenomenon is an internal experience of intellectual phoniness in authentically talented individuals, in which they doubt their accomplishments and fear being exposed as a fraud. While stereotype threat relies on broad generalization, the impostor phenomenon describes feelings of personal inadequacy, especially in high-achieving African Americans. This course will explore the evolving meanings connected to both stereotype threat and impostor phenomenon in relation to African Americans.
Course number only
6020
Cross listings
EDUC5538401
Use local description
No

AFRC5725 - Songs of Dissent: African American Poetry in the 21st Century

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Songs of Dissent: African American Poetry in the 21st Century
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC5725401
Course number integer
5725
Meeting times
M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Meeting location
BENN 222
Level
graduate
Instructors
Herman Beavers
Description
This course explores how poetry and poetics figure into the effort to theorize the African American subject in the 21st Century. Different instructors may emphasize difference aspects of the topic. Please see English.upenn.edu for a full list of course offerings.
Course number only
5725
Cross listings
COML5725401, ENGL5725401
Use local description
No

AFRC5702 - African and African Diasporic Material Culture in the Black Atlantic before 1800

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
African and African Diasporic Material Culture in the Black Atlantic before 1800
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
301
Section ID
AFRC5702301
Course number integer
5702
Meeting times
R 5:15 PM-8:14 PM
Meeting location
WLNT 330A
Level
graduate
Instructors
Vanicleia Silva Santos
Description
This class delves into the multifaceted role of African and African diasporic material culture, particularly sacred artifacts and relics, which have been preserved and transformed across the Black Atlantic. Students will explore the profound relationship between the Transatlantic Slave Trade and material culture, examining how these objects reflect African contexts and have served as instruments of resistance against religious intolerance while affirming cultural continuity. The course integrates diverse historical sources, including written records, oral traditions, museum collections, and archaeological discoveries. Through detailed case studies of specific artifacts and their symbolic meanings, students will analyze their presence in textual and visual sources, museum collections and engage in critical discussions on approaches to heritage preservation, resistance movements, and cultural continuity within diasporic communities.
This interdisciplinary seminar aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the significance of African material culture in the Black Atlantic, offering students a critical lens to evaluate its impact and legacy.
Course number only
5702
Use local description
No

AFRC5240 - Inequality & Race Policy

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Inequality & Race Policy
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC5240401
Course number integer
5240
Meeting times
R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Meeting location
DRLB 2C6
Level
graduate
Instructors
Daniel Q Gillion
Description
There is little question that inequality along the lines of race and ethnicity remain a constant problem in American society. And over time, the federal government has implemented several policy initiatives to address these inequities. However, less well understood is the success of these federal policies or the process in which they emerge from government as a viable solution. This course will provide an overview of the link between federal government action and changes in minority inequality. We will analyze several issue spaces that cover health, crime and incarceration, social policy and equal rights, education, welfare, and economics. We will take a multi-method approach to exploring the success of federal policies by conducting historical assessments and statistical analysis. Advanced undergraduates are welcome to take the course with permission.
Course number only
5240
Cross listings
PSCI5290401
Use local description
No

AFRC5172 - The Black Freedom Spirit: Readings in African American Religious History II

Status
X
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
The Black Freedom Spirit: Readings in African American Religious History II
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC5172401
Course number integer
5172
Meeting times
CANCELED
Level
graduate
Instructors
Vaughn A Booker
Description
This graduate seminar introduces participants to the major works and themes in the field of African American religious history, covering the period of colonial encounters through the middle decades of the twentieth century. This graduate seminar focuses on histories of activism, organizing, and alternative forms of institution-building by religious women and men of African descent in African American Religious History. Our readings attend to the regional, gendered, sociopolitical, intellectual, and international dimensions of African American religious history.
Seminar participants will also critically examine the place of Black Christianity (sometimes defined as Afro-Protestantism) in scholarly constructions of African American religions, acquiring the grounding to rethink, nuance, and expand the field beyond conventional focuses. The seminar’s primary aims are to help participants define interests within the field to pursue further study, to consider potential areas of research, and to aid preparation for doctoral examinations.
Course number only
5172
Cross listings
RELS5172401
Use local description
No

AFRC5087 - Race, Nation, Empire

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Race, Nation, Empire
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC5087401
Course number integer
5087
Meeting times
M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Meeting location
MUSE 328
Level
graduate
Instructors
Deborah A Thomas
Description
This graduate seminar examines the dynamic relationships among empires, nations and states; colonial and post-colonial policies; and anti-colonial strategies within a changing global context. Using the rubrics of anthropology, history, cultural studies, and social theory, we will explore the intimacies of subject formation within imperial contexts- past and present- especially in relation to ideas about race and belonging. We will focus on how belonging and participation have been defined in particular locales, as well as how these notions have been socialized through a variety of institutional contexts. Finally, we will consider the relationships between popular culture and state formation, examining these as dialectical struggles for hegemony.
Course number only
5087
Cross listings
ANTH5087401, GSWS5087401, LALS5087401
Use local description
No

AFRC5060 - Existence in Black

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Existence in Black
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC5060401
Course number integer
5060
Meeting times
R 12:00 PM-2:59 PM
Meeting location
MUSE 329
Level
graduate
Instructors
David K. Amponsah
Description
Racial, colonial, and other political formations have encumbered Black existence since at least the fifteenth-century. Black experiences of and reflections on these matters have been the subject of existential writings and artistic expressions ranging from the blues to reggae, fiction and non-fiction. Reading some of these texts alongside canonical texts in European existential philosophy, this class will examine how issues of freedom, self, alienation, finitude, absurdity, race, and gender shape and are shaped by the global Black experience. Since Black aliveness is literally critical to Black existential philosophy, we shall also engage questions of Black flourishing amidst the potential for pessimism and nihilism.
Course number only
5060
Cross listings
AFRC4406401, HIST0873401, PHIL4515401, PHIL6515401
Use local description
No

AFRC4605 - Topics in Black Feminism

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
Topics in Black Feminism
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
301
Section ID
AFRC4605301
Course number integer
4605
Meeting times
T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Meeting location
DRLB 4E9
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Jasmine Johnson
Description
This course examines the field of Black Feminism—or, the political, social, and economic forces that shape Black diasporic people’s gendered lives. Exploring iterations of Black feminism over time, it necessarily pluralizes feminism, paying attention to its meanings, uses, and applications across the African diaspora. Together, we'll ride the three waves of Black feminism to explore the ways Black women and Black femme’s political and cultural work has been consequential to notions of citizenship, belonging, culture and liberation. Drawing from Black Studies, Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies, and Performance Studies we will ask:
— How do Black women and Black femme's lives, labor, and cultural productions lay bare the limits of maleness and whiteness as dominant frames?
— How have/do their lives suggest other modalities of living, knowledge production, relations of being, and critiques of power/violence?
— How might we learn from the past in order to envision and build nourishing spaces for Black femmes today?
Course number only
4605
Use local description
No

AFRC4480 - Neighborhood Displacement and Community Power

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Neighborhood Displacement and Community Power
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC4480401
Course number integer
4480
Meeting times
T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM
Meeting location
MCNB 309
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Walter D Palmer
Description
This course uses the history of black displacement to examine community power and advocacy. It examines the methods of advocacy (e.g. case, class, and legislative) and political action through which community activists can influence social policy development and community and institutional change. The course also analyzes selected strategies and tactics of change and seeks to develop alternative roles in the group advocacy, lobbying, public education and public relations, electoral politics, coalition building, and legal and ethical dilemmas in political action. Case studies of neighborhood displacement serve as central means of examining course topics.
Course number only
4480
Cross listings
URBS4480401
Fulfills
Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
Use local description
No

AFRC4406 - Existence in Black

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Existence in Black
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC4406401
Course number integer
4406
Meeting times
R 12:00 PM-2:59 PM
Meeting location
MUSE 329
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
David K. Amponsah
Description
Racial, colonial, and other political formations have encumbered Black existence since at least the fifteenth-century. Black experiences of and reflections on these matters have been the subject of existential writings and artistic expressions ranging from the blues to reggae, fiction and non-fiction. Reading some of these texts alongside canonical texts in European existential philosophy, this class will examine how issues of freedom self, alienation, finitude, absurdity, race, and gender shape and are shaped by the global Black experience. Since Black aliveness is literally critical to Black existential philosophy, we shall also engage questions of Black flourishing amidst the potential for pessimism and nihilism.
Course number only
4406
Cross listings
AFRC5060401, HIST0873401, PHIL4515401, PHIL6515401
Use local description
No