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.

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?

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.

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.

This course examines the flourishing civilizations of the African continent between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the "Age of Discovery." Although material remains of the complex cultures that created exceptional works of art are rare, current archaeology is bringing much new information to the fore, allowing for the first time a preliminary survey of the burgeoning artistic production of the African continent while Europe was building its cathedrals. Bronze casting, gold work, terracotta and wood sculpture, and monumental architecture - the course takes a multi-media approach to understanding the rich foundations of African cultures and their deep interconnection with the rest of the world before the disruptive interventions of colonialism.

After an examination of the philosophical, legal, and political perspectives on Human Rights, this course will focus on US policies and practices relevant to Human Rights. Toward that end, emphasis will be placed on both the domestic and the international aspects of Human Rights as reflected in US policies and practices. Domestically, the course will discuss (1) the process of incorporating the International Bill of Human Rights into the American legal system and (2) the US position on and practices regarding the political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights of minorities and various other groups within the US. Internationally, the course will examine US Human Rights policies toward Africa. Specific cases of Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, as well as other cases from the continent, will be presented in the assessment of US successes and failures in the pursuit of its Human Rights strategy in Africa. Readings will include research papers, reports, statutes, treaties, and cases.

This class develops a transnational and global approach to the rise of abolitionism in the nineteenth century. In a comparative framework, the class traces the rise of abolitionism in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, examining the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade, the rise of colonialism in Africa, and the growth of forced labor in the wake of transatlantic slave trade. We will deal with key debates in the literature of African, Atlantic and Global histories, including the causes and motivations of abolitionism, the relationship between the suppression of the slave trade and the growth of forced labor in Africa, the historical ties between abolitionism and the early stages of colonialism in Africa, the flow of indentured laborers from Asia to the Americas in the wake of the slave trade. This class is primarily geared towards the production of a research paper. *Depending on the research paper topic, History Majors and Minors can use this course to fulfill the US, Europe, Latin America or Africa requirement.*

It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of the Civil War as a landmark event in the making of the modern United States, and indeed, the modern world. In addition to destroying slavery and the slaveholding class within the United States, the era introduced enduring dilemmas: What is the legacy of slavery in U.S. history and contemporary life? Who is entitled to citizenship in the United States? How do radical social movements relate to democratic political change? What is the nature of liberty in a “free” capitalist society? What do freedom and equality mean in concrete terms? Far from a straightforward transition from slavery to freedom, the story of the U.S. nineteenth century is much more complex: the Union victory in the Civil War eradicated slavery from American life but left it to future generations, including our own, to confront the legacies of slavery and to probe the meaning of freedom and to give it substance. This seminar explores enduring paradoxes of slavery and freedom through an in-depth historical analysis of the causes, course, and consequences of the U.S. Civil War. Topics include the place of slavery in the Federal Constitution, the spread of the cotton kingdom, Jacksonian democracy and the Market Revolution, ideologies of slavery and freedom, the rise of antislavery and proslavery politics, the growing social and economic divisions between North and South, the sectional crisis leading to war, the course and consequences of Northern military victory, emancipation, and the Reconstruction Amendments. We pay attention to these large-scale historical developments while also studying the individual experiences of statesmen and ordinary Americans, women as well as men, the enslaved as well as the free.

In recent decades, many African countries have perennially ranked very high among the most religious. This course serves as an introduction to major forms of religiosity in sub-Saharan Africa. Emphasis will be devoted to the indigenous religious traditions, Christianity and Islam, as they are practiced on the continent. We will examine how these religious traditions intersect with various aspects of life on the continent. The aim of this class is to help students to better understand various aspects of African cultures by dismantling stereotypes and assumptions that have long characterized the study of religions in Africa. The readings and lectures are will be drawn from historical and a few anthropological, and literary sources.

The objectives are to continue to strengthen students' knowledge of speaking, listening, reading, and writing Swahili and to compare it with the language of the students; to continue learning about the cultures of East Africa and to continue making comparisons with the culture(s) of the students; to continue to consider the relationship between that knowledge and the knowledge of other disciplines; and using that knowledge, to continue to unite students with communities outside of class. Level 3 on the ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable) scale.