Independent reading course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

How to handle overenrollment: null

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: written work, independent research, and oral presentations

(Offered as BLST 349 [US] and POSC 349) This course introduces students to the world of autobiographical writing by reading some important autobiographies written in the twentieth century. These authors include: Booker T. Washington, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Barack Obama. In addition to reading these autobiographies, students will also begin writing their own. By the end of the course, students will have raised the following questions: what makes autobiography distinct from other approaches to examining the past? what is the relationship between self and community?

This course is designed for Black Studies majors (and prospective Black Studies majors) working on Black Studies theses and other intensive research projects in African American studies and African and African diaspora studies. The course is intended to provide a scholarly community for students as they embark on the writing of their theses and research projects.

(Offered as HIST-329 [US/TR/TS] BLST-329 [US] and EDST-329.) In 2014-2015, young Black people in St. Louis and Ferguson rescued American democracy, and it scared the nation.  Their agitation on behalf of 18-year-old Mike Brown, who fatally resisted an overbearing white police officer, virtually brought millions of people to a sleepy suburb.  Brown’s last stand sparked a democracy movement throughout the country -- in places like Memphis, Baltimore, New York, Dallas, and Minneapolis.  This course will cover the making of a modern freedom movement.

(Offered as HIST-324 [AF/TC/TE/TR/P], and BLST-324.) Human histories have always intertwined with the histories of non-human animals, domesticated and wild. This course will discuss African animals as historical subjects, highlighting their connections to human societies and how animals have shaped these societies and entered into their cultural imaginings and economic endeavors.

[R] This seminar prepares students to conduct independent research. Although it concentrates on the field of Black Studies, it serves as a good introductory research course for all students in the humanities and social sciences regardless of major. The first part of the course will intensively introduce students to the library through a series of readings, exercises, and discussions aimed at sharpening the ability to locate information precisely and efficiently.

(Offered as POSC 272 and BLST 272 [US]) In this course, which is Part I of a two-part course, students engage the central political philosophical ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois's earliest major works, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1903). In doing so, we also engage some of the major secondary interpretive sources assessing his ideas.

(Offered as BLST 203 [D], ENGL 216, and SWAG 203) The term “Women Writers” suggests, and perhaps assumes, a particular category. How useful is this term in describing the writers we tend to include under the frame? And further, how useful are the designations "African" and "African Diaspora"? We will begin by critically examining these central questions, and revisit them frequently as we read specific texts and the body of works included in this course.

(Offered as BLST 131 [US], HIST 131 [US/TR/TS] and EDST 131) This course will explore the evolution of African American social movements over the course of the twentieth century. It will survey the critical organizations, institutions, and figures of the Black freedom struggle and will examine the ideological diversity of an umbrella movement that encompassed ever-shifting combinations of uplift politics, black nationalism, liberalism, and leftism. It will explore critical Black lives over the course of the semester, including Ida B. Wells, Booker T.

[R] This interdisciplinary introduction to Black Studies combines the teaching of foundational texts in the field with instruction in reading and writing. The first half of the course employs How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren as a guide to the careful reading of books focusing on the slave trade and its effects in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Important readings in this part of the course include Black Odyssey by Nathan Huggins, Racism: A Short History by George Frederickson, and The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James.