Afro-American Studies 590STC - Black Feminisms

This course will survey some of the essential Black Feminist works concerning the antebellum to today. To have a contemporary understanding of the variations of Black Feminisms today, it is important to have a grasp on the historical context of Blackness in the western hemisphere. This includes experiences rooted in the antebellum that span beyond American national borders, including the islands of the Caribbean, the Americas, and their territories. Some theories will be concerned with history and others with philosophical questions, such as Saidiya Hartman?s Scenes of Subjection or Katherine McKittrick?s Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis. Some major questions the content of this course is meant to engage students into thinking are: What is the relationship between Blackness, gender, and sexuality? How has the Black body served the politics of gender and sexuality throughout the diaspora? How has racialization enforced patriarchy through the state and in culture? How does Black Feminism offer radical world-building in the twenty-first century?