Africana Studies 366 - Seminar: Contemporary Topics in Africana Studies: The Politics of Grief

Topics course: What role has grief played in the black freedom struggle? How have conceptions of race and gender been articulated, expanded, and politicized through public performances of collective mourning? This seminar explores the ways in which post-emancipation black politics developed through efforts, often led by women, to not only challenge but to also embody and inhabit trauma. We will consider a range of theoretical texts alongside historical documents from the late nineteenth century to today. The course is structured around addressing two major questions: what is the politics of grief and is there such a thing as a particularly black politics of grief?

Instructor Permission Req. Not open to first-years, sophomores