History 792B - S-Topics/African American Hist

This seminar is designed to introduce graduate students to the key topics, questions and debates in 19th- and 20th-century African American history. Readings and discussions will consider the ways historians have researched and written about topics such as: the trans-Atlantic slave trade, resistance movements, cultural and racial identity formations, gender and sexuality, religion, popular culture and leisure, labor and class, and nationalism and emigration. Readings will include classic texts, recent scholarship, and primary sources.
Students who need to complete a 700-level course may enroll in this class and complete additional work to be agreed upon with the professor. They will be expected to conduct original research, using multiple primary sources and also a thorough review of the relevant historiography.

Open to Doctoral & Masters students only. Students will be expected to submit a 25-30 page research paper organized as a draft of a scholarly article or dissertation chapter in which they student presents their original research, framed by an well-developed and cogent argument and interpretation as well as a thoughtful explication of the relevant historiography.