The African American Theater spans over 200 years, from the earliest performances of the African Grove Theater to the Classical Theater of Harlem’s Afro-futuristic Twelfth Night in Marcus Garvey Park. This course will investigate and interrogate the history of American theater by examining Black creatives and their works as not merely contributors but pioneers of American theater.

(Offered as POSC 229 and BLST 229 [US]) This course surveys the historical and philosophical questions and answers made by African-Americans in response to white supremacy in the nineteenth and twentieth century U.S. Students in the course will explore the form and substance of political appeals on a wide range of themes including leadership, justice, freedom, equality, economic organization, power, and feminism. We will explore questions including: why was Frederick Douglass so adamant about reconstructing the principles of the founding?

(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 210 [A] HIST 210 [AF] and RELI 220) The course will examine the central role of Christianity and Islam in pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial African societies.

(Offered as BLST 208 [A/D] and HIST 211 [AF]) As the crisis of the postcolonial nation-state deepens in the context of globalization and statism in African countries especially in the last three decades, African societies have experienced significant migration of skilled and unskilled workers.  These migration flows are raising new questions about the nature of politics, economics, and culture in various African national and transnational contexts.  To explore the political, social, and economic consequences of these waves of migration in African states and among countries receivi

[R] In this course students will focus closely on major debates that have animated the field of Black Studies, addressing a wide range of issues from the slave trade to the present. Each week will focus on specific questions such as: What came first, racism or slavery? Is African art primitive? Did Europe underdevelop Africa? Is there Caribbean History or just history in the Caribbean? Should Black Studies exist? Is there a black American culture? Is Affirmative Action necessary? Was the Civil Rights Movement a product of government action or grass-roots pressure?

(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 BLST-122 and RELI-122) There is an aura of mystery that surrounds the meaning and practice of African religions. This is due to several factors: limited material on particular religions, the secrecy of most initiations, and the gradual disappearance of their rich heritage as a result of colonization.

[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.