This course is designed to familiarize graduate students with some of the key texts and debates in Africana Studies concerning the relationship between racial slavery, modernity and politics. Beginning with the Haitian Revolution, much of black political thought (thinking and doing politics) has advocated group solidarity and cohesion in the face of often overwhelming conditions of servitude, enslavement and coercion within the political economy of slavery and the moral economy of white supremacy. Ideas and practices of freedom however, articulated by political actors and intellectuals alike, have been as varied as the routes to freedom itself. Thus, ideas and practices of liberty, citizenship and political community within many African and Afro-descendant communities have revealed multiple, often competing forms of political imagination. The multiple and varied forms of political imagination, represented in the writings of thinkers like Eric Williams, Richard Wright, Carole Boyce Davies and others, complicates any understanding of black political thought as having a single origin, genealogy or objective. Students will engage these and other authors in an effort to track black political thought's consonance and dissonance with Western feminisms, Marxism, nationalism and related phenomena and ideologies of the 20th and now 21st century.

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.

This course focuses on the historical and cultural relationship between Africans and their descendants abroad.

This course will examine demographic and statistical methods used to capture the impact of racial stratification in society. This course covers the skills and insights used by demographers and social statisticians in the study of racial data. A key challenge facing researchers is the interpretation of the vast amount of racial data generated by society. As these data do not directly answer important social questions, data analysis and statistics must be used to interpret them. The course will examine the logic used to communicate statistical results from racial data in various societies. We will question the scientific claims of social science methodology by extending the critical perspective to biases that may underlie research methods. We will discuss good and bad practices within the context of the historical developments of the methods.

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.

The founder(s) of this course wondered, in an overtly and covertly racist society: “What if we engaged practitioners, educators and researchers in training (social work, policy, criminal justice, counseling, education, health care, etc.) to develop a more empathic imagination and reflection of the Black male before they encounter them in practice?” Core tenets underlying this class are that racial oppression exists, matters, is ubiquitous and pernicious and that those most affected are ignorant of this reality. Students will learn how to help the Black boys and men they engage to identify and challenge the effects of racial oppression on their academic, occupational, relational and cultural well-being, and to promote post-traumatic growth.

"This graduate course introduces students to theories, practices, and critiques of critical ethnography. Ethnography -- an approach to the study of culture which anthropologist James Clifford described as a process that "translates experiences into text" - will have our full attention. This process of translation, although seemingly straightforward, requires layers of interpretation, selection, and the imposition of a viewpoint or politics. While ethnography is often narrowly conceived of as a methodology, this course considers ethnography as a mode of inquiry, as a philosophy, as an ongoing question and performance. We wrestle with notions of "the self" and "the other" at the intersection of imbricated cultural and performance worlds. Together we'll ask: How is ethnography both critical and performative? What is the relationship between theory and method? How can we evaluate ethnographic work? And finally, what kinds of ethnographers do we want to be? This course considers a range of ethnographic examples in order to analyze both the craft and the stakes of "translating experiences into text."

This course examines the ways in which the processes of the extraction, refining, sale and use of natural resources – including oil and diamond – in Africa produce complex regional and global dynamics. We explore how values are placed on resources, how such values, the regimes of valuation, commodification and the social formations that are (re)produced by these regimes lead to cooperation and conflict in the contemporary African state, including in the relationships of resource-rich African countries with global powers. Specific cases will be examined against the backdrop of theoretical insights to encourage comparative analyses beyond Africa. Some audio-visual materials will be used to enhance the understanding of the political economy and sociality of natural resources.

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.

African-American Childhood is an upper-level seminar designed to introduce students to the literature on childhood and youth through the lens of African-American children's history. The class will demonstrate the relationship that race, gender, and age have in shaping children's experiences. Readings will focus on institutions serving African-American children, their participation in civil rights struggles, and the representation of African-American children in popular culture. The class will also consider children as political actors in major moments of African-American history. Class assignments will include two long research papers, presentations on course texts and a field trip. Students will strengthen their expository writing, as well as their primary and secondary research skills.