AFRC7904 - New Directions in Twenty-First Century Black Studies

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
New Directions in Twenty-First Century Black Studies
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC7904401
Course number integer
7904
Meeting times
W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM
Meeting location
BENN 140
Level
graduate
Instructors
Margo N. Crawford
Description
This course explores contemporary Black thought through a set of literary, visual, and theoretical texts. Our theoretical repertoire will include concepts like love, quiet, fabulation, and gaze to explore Black interiority in relation to political movements, aesthetic experimentation, gender and sexual identity, and African continental and diasporic practices. The course will draw on a range of genres (including films, photo portraits, personal essays, and criticism) and also take a comparative approach (including works from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States). See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a complete description of the current offerings.
Course number only
7904
Cross listings
COML7904401, ENGL7904401, GSWS7904401
Use local description
No

AFRC7230 - Multicultural Issues in Education

Status
A
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Multicultural Issues in Education
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
401
Section ID
AFRC7230401
Course number integer
7230
Meeting times
T 2:00 PM-4:29 PM
Meeting location
EDUC 212
Level
graduate
Instructors
Tamika D. Easley
Vivian Lynette Gadsden
Ayoung N Lee
Description
This course examines critical issues, problems, and perspectives in multicultural education. Intended to focus on access to literacy and educational opportunity, the course will engage class members in discussions around a variety of topics in educational practice, research, and policy. Specifically, the course will (1) review theoretical frameworks in multicultural education, (2) analyze the issues of race, racism, and culture in historical and contemporary perspective, and (3) identify obstacles to participation in the educational process by diverse cultural and ethnic groups. Students will be required to complete field experiences and classroom activities that enable them to reflect on their own belief systems, practices, and educational experiences.
Course number only
7230
Cross listings
EDUC7323401
Use local description
No

AFRC6401 - Proseminar in Africana Studies

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
Proseminar in Africana Studies
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
301
Section ID
AFRC6401301
Course number integer
6401
Meeting times
W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Meeting location
WLNT 330A
Level
graduate
Instructors
Marcia Chatelain
Description
This course focuses on the historical and cultural relationship between Africans and their descendants abroad.
Course number only
6401
Use local description
No

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