Afro-American Studies 11. Topics in Afro-American Literature and Culture
Catalog Number: 1439 Enrollment: Limited to Afro-American Studies concentrators and others by permission of the instructor.
K. Anthony Appiah
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Topic in 1999–00: The First Black Nationalists. This course will explore the writings of the leading African American intellectuals who constructed the discourse of black nationalism, against the background of African American experience and the broad history of European and American ideas about race, nation and culture. Readings from: E.W. Blyden, Alexander Crummel, Martin R. Delany, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey.
Afro-American Studies 12. Topics in Afro-American History and Society: Seminar
Catalog Number: 2393 Enrollment: Limited to Afro-American Studies concentrators, and others by permission of instructor.
J. Lorand Matory
Half course (spring term). W., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
Topic in 1999–00: Afro-Latin Society and Politics. Survey of non-English speaking populations of African descent in the Americas. While the course will focus on Afro-Brazilian lifeways, political struggles, and fundamental contributions to Brazilian national identity, students will take the lead in comparing this case to cases in the Spanish speaking Carribean and South America, Mexico and Central America, Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles, the French Caribbean départements, and Afro-Latin immigrant populations in the United States. The course hopes to arrive at an understanding on “race” as a culturally specific practice, and thereby both broaden and deepen the students’ understanding of African American life generally.
*Afro-American Studies 91r. Supervised Reading and Research
Catalog Number: 1269
K. Anthony Appiah and members of the Department
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Students wishing to enroll must petition the Head Tutor for approval, stating the proposed project, and must have permission of the proposed instructor. Ordinarily, students are required to have taken some coursework as background for their project.
*Afro-American Studies 98 (formerly Afro-American Studies 98a). Tutorial
Catalog Number: 6272
K. Anthony Appiah and members of the tutorial staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Students wishing to enroll must petition the Head Tutor for approval, stating the proposed project, and must have the permission of the proposed instructor. Ordinarily, students are required to have taken some coursework as background for their project.
Prerequisite: Completion of Afro-American Studies 10, or a substitute course approved by the Head Tutor.
*Afro-American Studies 99. Tutorial — Senior Year
Catalog Number: 8654 Enrollment: Limited to honors candidates.
K. Anthony Appiah and members of the Department
Full course. Hours to be arranged.
Thesis supervision under the direction of a member of the Department.
Afro-American Studies 118. African-American History from the Slave Trade to 1900
Catalog Number: 7429
Ronald Kent Richardson (Clark University)
Half course (fall term). M., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
The history of the African-American social, political, and cultural development from the slave trade to the dawn of the 20th century. Examines the internal world of African-American communities as well as their relation to the larger American socioeconomic context. Topics include the impact of slavery, abolitionism and the transition to freedom, regional and cultural differences among African-Americans, and the role of gender and class in black communities.
Note: Required of concentrators.
Afro-American Studies 119. The History of Racial Thought
Catalog Number: 5158
Ronald Kent Richardson (Clark University)
Half course (fall term). W., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
Explores racial thinking in Europe and America. Beginning with an introductory section on racial thinking, or its absence, from antiquity to the 15th century, the course focuses on the period from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. It attempts to put racial thinking in the West in a global context by drawing comparisons with ethnic and racial thinking in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
[Afro-American Studies 120. African-American Religious History]
Catalog Number: 2574
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Surveys the history of African-American religious institutions and beliefs from slavery to the present. Positions the diversity of African-American religious expression within the larger context of black social and political life. Topics include the transmission of African culture to the New World, religion under slavery, independent black churches, race relations, foreign missions, black nationalism, gender and class, and reform resistance.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01. Offered as Div 2370
[Afro-American Studies 123. Race, Nation, and Democracy]
Catalog Number: 2596
Cornel West and Roberto Mangabeira Unger (Law School)
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Studies the relationship between the promotion of group rights and identities and the advancement of democratic experimentalism in social life. Addresses these issues in two settings: 1) the American experience and debate about racism and its relation to class divisions, and 2) the worldwide resurgence of nationalism and the role of the nation-state as an instrument for the expression either of actual national differences or of the will to develop such differences. Explores the consequences of democratic experimentalism and of the efforts of minority groups to establish a generalized politics and law of group identities and rights.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 123z. American Democracy
Catalog Number: 2354
Cornel West and Roberto Mangabeira Unger (Law School)
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Considers, in an American setting, the contemporary meaning of the democratic idea, the relation of democratic government to the market economy as well as to the class, gender and racial divisions of society, and the alternative institutional futures of democracy. Two focal points for the argument of the course are: 1) the exploration of possible, more democratizing arrangements for the organization of government, the economy, and civil society, and 2) the changes in consciousness, culture, and education needed to sustain such arrangements. Seeing American problems and possibilities as variations on worldwide themes, the course asks what it would mean to sacrifice American “exceptionalism” to American experimentalism.
Note: Additional discussion hour scheduled weekly. Offered jointly with the Law School as 30500-11.
[Afro-American Studies 124. Constructions of Identity: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 3341
K. Anthony Appiah
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the debates about the social construction of race, gender, and sexuality. After exploring some work on gender and on lesbian and gay identities, the course will focus, in particular, on the debates about the interaction between gender and sexuality, on the one hand, and race, on the other. Discussions will center around the claims in political theory for the relevance of these collective identities for conceptions of citizenship and of political life.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 124z. Race, Culture, and Identity
Catalog Number: 8345
K. Anthony Appiah
Half course (spring term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
As the critique of “race” as a social construction has become increasingly familiar, the concept of culture has been invoked to provide an alternative account of what is distinctive about African-Americans. At the same time, the word “culture” has come to be used in a wider and wider range of contexts, from anthropology and economics to literary and cultural studies. This course will explore some of the intellectual history of the idea of culture and examine critically its invocation in discussions of African American identity.
[Afro-American Studies 125. Philosophical Problems of Race and Racism]
Catalog Number: 3822
K. Anthony Appiah
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
“Race” is a central term in political debate, social theory and everyday life in our society. It is widely held to be important in large measure because of the history of what we call “racism” in the United States and more generally, in the modern world. Yet there is little reflection on and no consensus about how either “race” or “racism” should be understood. We shall explore three key questions: How are we to understand the term “race”? What is racism? and Why is racism wrong?
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[Afro-American Studies 131. Afro-American Literature to the 1920s]
Catalog Number: 2589
Werner Sollors
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Considers autobiography within the African American literary tradition from the slave narratives of Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass to contemporary narratives written by Nathan McCall, Brent Staples, and Stephen Carter.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01. Concentrators may take Afro-American Studies 137y in lieu of Afro-American Studies 131 for 1999–00.
[Afro-American Studies 132. Afro-American Literature from the 1920s to the Present]
Catalog Number: 3710
Werner Sollors
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Close readings of major 20th-century writers in the context of cultural history. (I) From the Harlem Renaissance to the Federal Writers’ Project: Locke, Toomer, McKay, Fauset, Schuyler, Hughes, Hurston, Wright. (II) From World War II to the present: Ellison, Petry, Baldwin, Hansberry, Jones/Baraka, Morrison, Reed, Johnson, Lee, Dove.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[*Afro-American Studies 132z. Domestic Life in Literature: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 4074
---------------
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Compares the portrayal of life at home in the literature of writers from the “Metropole” (center of activity) and the writers from the “outlying” areas. Readings from the works of Merle Hodge, Myriam Warner-Vieyra, Jean Rhys, Maria Luisa Bombal, George Eliot, Colette, Charlotte Brönte, Virginia Woolf, and others.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[Afro-American Studies 134. The Literature of Possession: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 4105
-----------
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Through literary accounts of historical events, the part that imagination played in the relationship between the possessor and possessions as Europeans “took possession” of the New World will be explored. Readings from the works of Christopher Columbus, Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke, Bernal Diaz, C.L.R. James, George Lamming, Marco Polo, V.S. Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 134z. Reading Thomas Jefferson and The African in America
Catalog Number: 9959
Jamaica Kincaid
Half course (spring term). Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal....” The author of those words was Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States; but who might have needed them more, the author and President or a contemporary of his, a man he owned named Jupiter. A look through his writings into the world of Thomas Jefferson and the influence the enslaved African had upon him. Special attention will be paid to “The Declaration of Independence”, “Notes on the State of Virginia”, and “The Farm and Garden Book”.
[*Afro-American Studies 135. The Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 5092
Cornel West
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the key texts of one of the towering African-American intellectuals of the 20th century. Analyzes the classic works of W.E.B. Du Bois as well as reconstructs the varying contexts of these works.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 135z. James Baldwin and Lorrraine Hansberry
Catalog Number: 2175
Cornel West
Half course (spring term). Tu., 12–2. EXAM GROUP: 14, 15
Examines the major works—fiction and non-fiction— of these two towering figures. We shall explore their conceptions of what it means to be human, modern, American, and Black.
Afro-American Studies 136x. Fiction(s) of Race, Fact(s) of Racism: Perspectives From South African and Afro-American Literatures
Catalog Number: 1281
Biodun Jeyifo (Cornell University)
Half course (fall term). Tu., 12–2. EXAM GROUP: 14, 15
Examines works of South African and African American fiction and drama in the light of the powerful claim that “race” is a socially constructed fiction with no scienctific, rationally provable basis to it. The works explored in the course also see race as a fiction, but consistent with the dialectics of artistic representation, the juxtaposition of the fiction of race to the fact(s) of racism pose the fundamental question: Can we imagine a time, a place, a world where racism, like “race,” will become fiction? Authors examined will include Baraka, Morrison, Naylor, August Wilson, Gordimer, Nkosi, Furgard and Coetzee.
Afro-American Studies 136y. Key texts of the African Decolonization and Afro-American Liberation Movements
Catalog Number: 2355
Half course (spring term). Th., 3–5.
Comparatively explores key literary texts and documents of the political and cultural movements of Africans and Afro-Americans in the second half of the 20th century. Using debates on the legacies of Negritude and the Black Aesthetic movements and their relationship to literary and cultural modernity as paradigms, the course will provide a critical framework for engaging Post-War intellectual and artistic relations between Africans and African Americans. In particular, focuses on experimental, avant-garde ideas and practices within the orthodoxies of Negritude and the Black Aesthetic to explore the connections between art and politics, cultural production and social emancipation.
[Afro-American Studies 136z. Comparative African and African-American Drama: the Dramaturgy of Wole Soyinka and August Wilson]
Catalog Number: 0311
Biodun Jeyifo (Cornell University)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores selected plays of Soyinka and Wilson and locates the study of these plays within the broader framework of experimentation in the idioms of theater and performance in Black drama in Africa and the United States. This broader framework also embraces the articulations of ideology and politics within, and between, race, culture, class and gender in contemporary African and African-American drama and theater. Focused, intensive study of the selected plays will be combined with exploration of the issues, challenges, practices and achievements that have defined and shaped Black theater and drama in the second half of this century.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 137y. The African American Literary Tradition
Catalog Number: 1820
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Half course (spring term). M., 12–2. EXAM GROUP: 5, 6
Considers autobiography within the African American literary tradition from the slave narratives of Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass to contemporary narratives written by Nathan McCall, Brent Staples, and Stephen Carter.
Note: Concentrators may take Afro-American Studies 137 in lieu of Afro-American Studies 131 for 1999–00.
[*Afro-American Studies 137z (formerly English 90ut). Black Women and Their Fiction]
Catalog Number: 5145
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Intends to define the precise shape and contours of the tradition of black women’s writing in English. How do black women use language to represent their experiences? How does their writing resemble or diverge from the black male tradition? How does black feminist theory differ from white feminist theory?
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[Afro-American Studies 138. Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 6227
Werner Sollors
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Investigates the development of Wright’s sociological and Hurston’s anthropological imagination, with special emphasis on gender, politics, and literary form. Readings include most published and some unpublished writings, against the background of criticism.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[Afro-American Studies 138z. Interracial Literature]
Catalog Number: 0164
Werner Sollors
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
This new course examines a wide variety of literary texts on black-white couples, interracial families, and biracial identity, from classical antiquity to the present. Works studied include romances, novellas, poems, plays, novels, short stories, and non-fiction, as well as some examples from the visual arts. Topics for discussion range from interracial genealogies to racial “passing,” from representations of racial difference to alternative plot resolutions, and from religious and political to legal and scientific contexts for the changing understanding of “race.”
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 140. Syncretism: Seminar
Catalog Number: 3988
J. Lorand Matory
Half course (fall term). Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 17, 18
Addresses hotly debated methods in the study of African American lifeways. Syncretism is the convergence of practices and beliefs of diverse origins, culminating in the synthesis of new cultural forms, like jazz and Cuban “Santería.” Examines the cultural prefigurations and political conditions that determine local syntheses and complicate conventional models of cultural retention and purity, acculturation, assimilation, and pluralism. While focused on the African diaspora in the Americas, includes comparative materials from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3827.
[Afro-American Studies 140z. The Other African Americans]
Catalog Number: 0300
J. Lorand Matory
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Surveys the history and contemporary experiences of self-identified “mixed-race” groups, as well as voluntary immigrant groups from Africa and the Caribbean, such as Cape Verdeans, Nigerians, Jamaicans, Afro-Puerto Ricans, and Haitains in the United States. In this context, students will be introduced to arguments central to the social scientific study of modern societies generally, such as the invention of ethnicity, and negotiation of identity, and the social constructedness of race.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[Afro-American Studies 141 (formerly Anthropology 157). Afro-Atlantic Religions]
Catalog Number: 3336
J. Lorand Matory
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Investigates the spiritual, political, and economic lives of millions around the Atlantic perimeter who worship African gods: West and Central Africans, Cubans, Brazilians, Haitians, and North Americans. For them, the gods are sources of power, organization, and healing amid the local political dominance of Muslims and Christians and the seismic expansion of international capitalism — conditions which themselves require significant attention. Lectures focus on such themes as women’s empowerment and the construction of gender in these religions, while a series of in-class discussions with priests will propose its own themes.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01. HDS 3692
[Afro-American Studies 142. Afro-Latin Society and Politics]
Catalog Number: 6648
J. Lorand Matory
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Survey of non-English-speaking populations of African descent in the Americas. While the course will focus on Afro-Brazilian lifeways, political struggles, and fundamental contributions to Brazilian national identity, students will take the lead in comparing this case to cases in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and South America, Mexico and Central America, Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles, the French Caribbean départements, and Afro-Latino immigrant populations in the United States. The course hopes to arrive at an understanding on “race” as a culturally specific practice, and thereby both broaden and deepen the students’ understanding of African-American life generally.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01. Course being offered as Afro-American Studies 12 in 1999–00.
[Afro-American Studies 165. Art and Colonialism]
Catalog Number: 4300 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Suzanne P. Blier
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
The role of colonialism in the definition, delimitation, discourse about art is examined in this course. The principal focus will be on art and colonial experience outside the West with respect to European or American presence. Among the topics raised are the following: the colonial experience and its “trace;” perceptions of the other; research methodologies and marginalization; the politics of collecting, museums, and exhibits; fantasy and the photographic record, the other Other; issues of gender; tourism and the role of foreign markets; native portrayals of the European other; primitivism and modern art.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 165y. African Women in Art and History
Catalog Number: 2301 Enrollment: Limited to 12
Suzanne P. Blier
Half course (fall term). Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Looks at the issues of gender identity, power, and display through the lens of key traditions of African art. Women as subjects, patrons, artists, and critics will also be explored in a range of contexts. Female/male aesthetics, male personification of females in masquerades, the prominence of androgyny in African art, “mother gods,” art in contexts of gender socialization, women on local governance, women in colonial discourse, and women on the move, are other issues which will be examined.
Note: Meets at the Sackler Museum.
[Afro-American Studies 165z. Art of the African Diaspora: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 4873
Suzanne P. Blier
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores seminal issues in the arts of the African Diaspora, looking at a range of African-American Visual traditions in the Americas. Both historic and contemporary issues and forms will be examined in relationship to important traditions of sculpture, painting, dance, architecture, and performance art. Artists discussed will range from Edward Bannister, Edmonia Lewis, and Henry O. Tanner, to Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden and Charles White to Mel Edwards, Faith Ringgold, Fred Wilson, and Ike Ude. Carnival performances, Santeria traditions, Vodou ritual forms, and other “popular” or vernacular idioms will be treated as well.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[*Afro-American Studies 170. “Racial Health” and the American South: Conference Course]
Catalog Number: 7583
Keith A. Wailoo
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the role of economic and political relations in shaping the concept and experience of “racial health” in the American South. Emphasis on the changing relationship between black health and white health; the transformation of plantation medical cultures; urban and rural economies of health and healing; the racial characterization and symbolism of diseases from tuberculosis to syphilis and AIDS; segregation and integration of health care; and the changing place of racial health in regional political economy, in Southern social order, and in the social, intellectual, and political transformation of the region.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
[Afro-American Studies 171. Genetics, Race, and Medicine]
Catalog Number: 7701
Keith A. Wailoo
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores development of the knowledge and discourse of genetics in 19th and 20th century America, and the ways in which this knowledge has shaped (and reflected) changes in medical practice, public policy, and social thought. Examines genetics’ impact on notions of health, disease, and racial identity. Principal topics include: the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance; genetics and eugenics policy; evolving debates over the biology of racial identity; the role of media in shaping perceptions of heredity, race, and disease; case histories of specific “race linked genetic diseases;” the rise of molecular biology and its notions of genetic and social grouping; genetic couseling, genetic testing, and “gene therapy” as political, social, and cultural phenomena.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
Afro-American Studies 187y. Black Cinema as Genre—From Blaxploitation to Quentin Tarantino
Catalog Number: 9338
Isaac Julien
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1–4. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16, 17
Looks at the history of African-American Cinema (from Oscar Micheaux to Spike Lee) and focuses on the use of stereotypes and hyperbole in some of its post-war popular genres including blaxploitation (Melvin van Peebles). Discussions will focus on issues of sexism and homophobia as well as the way space, time, and the city figure in these cinemas. Topics include: representation of gender in Dash’s Illusions and Lee’s Girl 6; the role of Pam Grier in blaxploitation films; the ‘soul film’ genre (Superfly) and black independent cinema (Ganja and Hess); the construction of black masculinity in Boyz ‘n the Hood and gangsta-rap themed noir films; and the appropriation of black cinema by other film-makers and genres such as the aesthetic du cool of Quentin Tarantino.
Note: Previous background in cultural theory and/or film theory recommended but not required.
[Afro-American Studies 191. The Civil Rights Movement: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 0897
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores the movement from its integrationist period in the 1950s and early 1960s to the heyday of militant black power in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Attention given to grassroots community activism, the contribution of nationally prominent individuals and organizations, and the changing of American laws, society, and the state.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
*Afro-American Studies 196. Sociological Perspectives on Racial Inequality in America: Seminar
Catalog Number: 4619 Enrollment: Limited to 30
William Julius Wilson (Kennedy School)
Half course (spring term). M., at 2:30. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
Examines classical and contemporary works on racial inequality in America. Different conceptions of the social, economic, and political situations that affect the state and nature of race relations are critically analyzed, as well as the different views on race and social policy.
Note: Offered jointly with the Kennedy School as HLE-209. Students must attend the first meeting of the class to enroll.
[Afro-American Studies 196z. Race, Segregation and Inequality]
Catalog Number: 5210
Lawrence D. Bobo
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the changing status of African-Americans in the post-civil rights era from a variety of social science perspectives. The focus is on major scholarly assessments of the status of Blacks. Among the focal points of inquiry will be: race-based economic inequality; processes of racial residential segregation; and racial prejudice and bias in politics and everyday interaction. Although focused on contemporary issues and research, the course draws on foundational approaches developed by Du Bois, Johnson, and Drake and Cayton in their pioneering assessments of the status of Blacks.
Note: Expected to be given in 2000–01.
*Afro-American Studies 197. Race, Class and Poverty in Urban America: Seminar
Catalog Number: 7265 Enrollment: Limited to 30
William Julius Wilson (Kennedy School)
Half course (spring term). M., 2:30–4:30. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8, 9
Presents a social/historical analysis of the changing nature of urban inequality. Topics include the making of the inner-city ghetto; the new urban poverty; race and class conflict in urban America; and race, poverty, and public policy.
Note: Offered jointly with the Kennedy School as HLE-206. Meets at the Kennedy School. Students must attend the first meeting of the class to enroll–check Kennedy School calendar for date.