(Offered as ENGL-430 and BLST-303) This course focuses on contemporary African American playwrights. Special attention will be given to changes in the landscape of black American theater over the course of the last two decades. What does contemporary African American drama have to say about issues such as gender, sexuality, class, and/or social justice activism? How has black theater and drama been renewed and/or transformed in the wake of the contemporary movement for black lives?

(Offered as SWAG 279, BLST 302, and ENGL 279) What do we mean by “women’s fiction”? How do we understand women’s genres in different national contexts? This course examines topics in feminist thought such as marriage, sexuality, desire and the home in novels written by women writers from South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. We will draw on postcolonial literary theory, essays on transnational feminism, and historical studies to situate our analyses of these novels.

(Offered as SWAG 279, BLST 302, and ENGL 279) What do we mean by “women’s fiction”? How do we understand women’s genres in different national contexts? This course examines topics in feminist thought such as marriage, sexuality, desire and the home in novels written by women writers from South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. We will draw on postcolonial literary theory, essays on transnational feminism, and historical studies to situate our analyses of these novels.

(Offered as BLST 278 [CLA], LLAS 278 and HIST 278 [LA/TS/TR/ P ])  More people of African descent live in Brazil than in any country in the world, except Nigeria. Of the more than 12 million Africans deported as captives to the Americas, Brazil received 24 percent. In contrast, North America received less than 4 percent. This readings-based course features both secondary and primary sources.

(Offered as BLST 278 [CLA], LLAS 278 and HIST 278 [LA/TS/TR/ P ])  More people of African descent live in Brazil than in any country in the world, except Nigeria. Of the more than 12 million Africans deported as captives to the Americas, Brazil received 24 percent. In contrast, North America received less than 4 percent. This readings-based course features both secondary and primary sources.

(Offered as BLST 215[D] and ENGL 241) This course explores various musical forms and traditions as well as poetry from the Caribbean, South America, and the United States. We will explore thematic and stylistic synergies between the different genres and pay particular attention to their social, political, and ideological orientations. Musical forms will include: The Blues, Calypso, Reggae, Rap, and Spirituals and we will read poetry by Kate Rushin, Sonia Sanchez, Mutabaruka and others.  Limited to 20 students.

Spring semester. Professor Bailey

(Offered as BLST 195[D] and ENGL 195) During the middle decades of the twentieth century, existentialism dominated the European philosophical and literary scene. Prominent theorists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty put the experience of history, alienation, and the body at the center of philosophical and literary life. It should be no surprise, then, that existentialism appealed to so many Afro-Caribbean and African-American thinkers of the same period and after.

(Offered as ENGL-252 and BLST-152) This course is a survey of nineteenth and twentieth century African American literature (and its attendant scholarly criticism). We will begin in the nineteenth century with the literature of black freedom, bondage, and abolition (vis-à-vis the work of writers such as Frederick Douglass, Henry Box Brown and Harriet Jacobs).

(Offered as BIOL 411 and NEUR 411) Plastic changes to synapses are thought to underlie many higher order functions of the brain in both the developing and adult nervous system. Knowledge of the underlying molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity is critical to understanding the complex functions of the brain to which these changes contribute. This seminar course will primarily focus on the most well-studied example of synaptic plasticity, synaptic modifications in a region of the brain called the hippocampus. These changes are thought to underlie our ability to learn and remember.

(Offered as CHEM 330 and BIOL 330) What are the molecular underpinnings of processes central to life? We will explore the chemical and structural properties of biological molecules and learn the logic used by the cell to build complex structures from a few basic raw materials. Some of these complex structures have evolved to catalyze chemical reactions with an enormous degree of selectivity and specificity, and we seek to discover these enzymatic strategies.