I. SURVEY AND EXPERIMENTAL COURSES
7. First Year Seminar
Consult special listings
10. Introduction to African American Studies
12S, 12F: 10
A multidisciplinary investigation into the lives and cultures of people of African descent in the Americas. Topics may include: the African background, religion and the Black church, popular culture, slavery and resistance, morality and literacy, the Civil Rights Movement, Black nationalism, theories of race and race relations. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Chaney, Favor.
11. Introduction to African Studies
13S: 12
Multidisciplinary in scope, the course will survey critical social change in African cultures and civilizations through a study of history, art, literature, religion, economy, and politics, paying particular attention to the cultural impact of colonial rule on contemporary societies and states. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Sackeyfio.
12. Black America to the Civil War (Identical to, and described under, History 16)
11F: 10
Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Johnson.
13. Black America Since the Civil War (Identical to, and described under, History 17)
12W: 11
Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Rickford.
14. Pre-Colonial African History (Identical to, and described under, History 5.1)
11F: 10 13W: 10
Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Sackeyfio.
15. History of Africa Since 1800 (Identical to, and described under, History 66)
12S, 13S: 10
Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Lamothe, Sackeyfio.
16. History, Culture and Society: The Many Faces of Latin America (Identical to Latin American and Caribbean Studies 4)
12W, 13W: 10A
The Spanish discovery and conquest of this continent created Latin America and the Caribbean out of the diverse and complex realities of the pre-Columbian world. Since colonial times Latin American and Caribbean cultures have developed against a background of cultural repression, racial conflict, political domination, colonial exploitation, and gender inequality. And yet, in the midst of all this turmoil, Latin America and the Caribbean have produced an extraordinary variety and wealth of artistic creations, ranging from literature to the visual arts, from music to film. In this course we will turn to some of the works by Latin American and Caribbean artists and writers in an attempt to illuminate and explore some of the wonders of the cultural dynamics that shape the many faces of what we call Latin America and the Caribbean. Dist: LIT; WCult: NW. , Buéno, Walker.
19. Africa and the World (Identical to, and described under, History 5.8)
12S: 2A 13W: 3B
Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: NW. Lamothe, Trumbull.
II. AFRICAN AMERICAN COURSES
24. The Black Radical Tradition in America (Identical to, and described under, History 37)
Not offered in the period 11F through 13S
Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Rickford.
25. Constructing Black Womanhood (Identical to, and described under, Sociology 46 and Women’s and Gender Studies 33)
12W, 13S: 2
Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. King.
26. Toni Morrison (Identical to, and described under, English 72)
12W, 13W: 2A
Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Vasquez.
31. Black Theater, U.S.A. (Identical to, and described under, Theater 22)
12W: 10
Dist: ART; WCult: CI. Kelly.
34. Early Black American Literature (Identical to, and described under, English 43)
Not offered in the period 11F through 13S
Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Chaney, Favor.
35. Modern Black American Literature (Identical to, and described under, English 49)
12W: 10
Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Favor, Vasquez.
39. History of Jazz (Identical to, and described under, Music 5)
11F: 10A
Dist: ART; WCult: W. Haas.
Associated Courses:
Geography 25 Social Justice and the City
Geography 43 Geographies of Latin America
III. AFRICAN COURSES
40. Gender Identities and Politics in Africa (Identical to Women’s and Gender Studies 34.2)
12W, 13W: 2A
This interdisciplinary course explores the constructions of gender identities in different African sociocultural contexts. The emphasis is on contemporary Africa, although we will discuss some of the historical frameworks of these identities. We will read historical accounts of gender in some pre-colonial African societies, investigate the impact of colonialism, and examine gender in some anticolonial movements. We will also analyze gender in urban and rural contexts, and address such questions as homosexuality and gay rights. Dist: INT; WCult: CI. Coly.
44. Contemporary Africa: Exploding Myths, Engaging Realities (Identical to, and described under, Anthropology 36)
12S: 2
Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Igoe.
46. History of Modern South Africa (Identical to, and described under, History 67)
11F: 10 13W: 12
Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Sackeyfio.
50. Colonialism, Development and the Environment in Asia and Africa (Identical to, and described under, History 75 and Environmental Studies 45)
13W: 10
Dist: INT or SOC; WCult: NW. Haynes.
51. African Literatures: Masterpieces of Literatures from Africa (Identical to, and described under, Comparative Literature 51 and English 67)
13S: 2A
Dist: LIT or INT; WCult: NW. Coly.
52. The History of North Africa from the Arrival of Islam to the Present (Identical to, and described under, History 68)
12F: 10A
Dist:SOC; WCult: NW. Trumbull.
53. Islam in Africa (Identical to, and described under, History 69)
13W: 10A
Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Trumbull.
54. Topics in African Theater and Performance (Identical to, and described under, Theater 23)
12W: 2
Dist: ART; WCult: NW. Edmondson.
55. African Cinema (Identical to Film and Media Studies 42)
Not offered in the period 11F through 13S
Dist: ART; WCult: NW. Coly.
Associated Courses:
Environmental Studies 40, Foreign Study in Environment Problems I
Environmental Studies 42, Foreign Study in Environment Problems II
Geography 16, The Political Economy of Development
IV. AFRICAN DIASPORA AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES
65. Introduction to Postcolonial Literature (Identical to, and described under, English 58)
12S: 11
Dist: LIT or INT; WCult: NW. Giri.
67. Colonial and Postcolonial Masculinities (Identical to, and described under, Comparative Literature 67, English 63, and Women’s and Gender Studies 52.1)
12S, 13S: 2A
Dist: LIT. Coly.
Associated Courses:
French 70, Francophone Literature (If related to the African diaspora)
History 6, Guerrilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency and Movements of National
Liberation in Asia, Africa and Latin America
Music 4, Global Sounds
Music 51, Oral Tradition Musicianship
Sociology 22, The Sociology of International Development
V. SPECIAL TOPICS IN AAAS
80.1 Civil Rights in the United States in the 20th Century (Identical to, and described under, History 6)
Not offered in the period 11F through 13S
Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Rickford.
80.2 Caribbean Women Writers (Identical to, and described under, English 67.3)
11F: 10A
Dist: LIT; WCult:CI. Morgan.
80.2 Black Brazilian Women Writers (Identical to Comparative Literature 52)
12W: 3B 13W: 10A
This course focuses on the contemporary literary production by women of African ancestry in Brazil. The genres covered will be poetry, short story and novel. Students will engage selected literary texts focusing of issues such as slavery and race relations, the construction of family, class divisions and spatial marginality, industrialization, and gender and sexuality politics. Authors will include the likes of Conceição Evaristo and Miriam Alves, two of the most important contemporary Afro-Brazilian literary voices, among others. Dist: LIT. Salgueiro.
80.3 Blacks in Hollywood Film
Not offered in the period 11F through 13S
83.1 Afro-Brazilian Diasporic Literature in the Americas (Identical to, and described under, Latin American and Caribbean Studies 63, and Comparative Literature 52)
Not offered in the period 11F through 13S
Dist: LIT; WCult: CI. Smolin.
83.2 Food and the African World (Identical to Geography 80)
13S: 2
African plants, cuisines and knowledge have long enriched the world’s diets and agrarian economies, yet in contemporary Africa millions suffer from hunger. This course explores both aspects of Africa’s food history, as well as the connections between them. The topics covered include traditional African foodways and their transatlantic and global spread, modern Africa’s experience of famine and food aid, and questions of race and food rights in the United States. Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: NW. Freidberg.
83.3 Slavery and Emancipation in Latin America and the Caribbean (Identical to History 86 and Latin American and Caribbean Studies 58)
12W: 10 13S: 10
For over 300 years, Africans were transported to Latin America and the Caribbean to work as enslaved laborers. This course will examine the history of African slavery in the region from the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade to the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888. For each class session, students will review primary source documents such as autobiographies, slave codes, plantation journals, visual images, and anti-slavery tracts as well as historical scholarship. Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: NW. Goldthree.
83.4 Caribbean History: 1898 to the Present (Identical to History 6)
12W: 2 13S: 2
This course surveys the major issues that have shaped Caribbean society from the late 19th-century to the present, including: imperialism, urbanization, migration and globalization, struggles for national independence, the transition from plantation to tourism-based economies, and the global spread of Caribbean popular culture. Our readings and discussions will focus on the historical trajectories of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the Dominican Republic using historical scholarship, music, literature, film, and personal narratives. Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: NW. Goldthree.
83.5 African Religions of the Americas (Identical to, and described under, Religion 17)
11F: 10
Dist: INT or TMV; WCult: CI. Pérez.
84. Black Britain in Literature and Film (Identical to English 67.6)
12W: 2
Black people have lived in Britain since the sixteenth century and published books there since the eighteenth century. This course is a detailed analysis of the lives, representation and authorship of black people in Britain. We will read modern authors such as Caryl Phillips, Sam Selvon, Andrea Levy, Bernardine Evaristo, Paul Gilroy, and Zadie Smith, and works by eighteenth-century authors such as Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho. Films include documentaries on black Britain and feature films. Main topics are immigration and outsiders; crafting a literary voice; the concept of “home”; multicultural Britain; and the formation of a Black British identity. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI. Gerzina.
85. Afro-Latin American Literature in Translation
12S: 2-5pm, Wednesday
This course examines the development of Afro-Latin American literature. Texts represent a sampling of the literary production of writers of African ancestry from Cuba, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Uruguay, and Peru. Works will be read as literary artifacts attesting to the history of Blacks in Latin America. The major focus of analysis of literary texts will be socio-cultural and historical in order to offer an interdisciplinary approach to literary studies. Tillis.
85.1 South African Literature in English (Identical to, and described under, English 67.2)
11F: 10
Dist: LIT; WCult: CI. Crewe.
86. Nationalism and Revolution in the Caribbean (Identical to Latin American and Caribbean Studies 54 and History 6)
11S: 10A 13W: 10A
The islands of the Caribbean have served as the site for two of the most significant revolutionary upheavals of the modern era—the Haitian Revolution and the Cuban Revolution and have produced anti-colonial luminaries such as José Marti, Frantz Fanon, Marcus Garvey, and Claudia Jones. This course will explore the origin, trajectory, and outcome of nationalist struggles in the Caribbean from the eighteenth-century to the present through primary and secondary materials, memoirs, fiction, and film. Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: NW. Goldthree.
87. Slavery in the Empire: Brazilian Literature in the Nineteenth Century and Beyond (Identical to, and described under, Latin American and Caribbean Studies 61)
11F: 2
Dist: LIT; WCult: NW. Smolin.
88. United States Afro-Latino Literature (Identical to Latino Studies 43 and Comparative Literature 57)
12W: 2-5pm, Wednesday
This course proposes to examine literature written by U.S. citizens of African and Spanish- Caribbean ancestry. This growing group of writers represents new perspectives that are challenging while broadening the scope, definition and imaginary conception of “American literature,” specifically in North America. Laden with neo-cartographies of the home-space, the works of writers such as Marta Vega, Loida Maritza Perez, and Nelly Rosario challenge institutionalized notions of space, place, location, home, nation, culture, citizenship and identity. Dist: LIT. Tillis.
89. Independent Study in African and African American Studies
All terms: Arrange
Available to students who wish to independently explore aspects of African and African American Studies which are not included in courses currently offered at Dartmouth. Open to qualified students with permission of the course instructor and the Chair. (Obtain Proposal Form in the program office.) No student may take more than two such courses without the approval of the program. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The AAAS faculty.
90-96. Senior Seminars in African and African American Studies
90.1 Gender and Race in Latin America (Identical to, and described under, Latin American and Caribbean Studies 80)
Not offered in the period 11F through 13S
Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: NW. Mollett.
90.2 Dave the Potter: Slavery Between Pots and Poems (Identical to English 60.3)
11F: 11
This course examines the work of David Drake, a South Carolinian slave who made some of the largest ceramic storage vessels of this region, signing them and etching sayings and poems onto them as well. This seminar engages with Drake’s poetry-pottery through critical and historical research, interpretive writing, and our own creative adventures in ceramic handicrafts. As a culminating assignment, students will contribute chapters to a scholarly book on Drake, which the professor shall edit. Dist: ART (pending approval). Chaney.
90.3 Afro-Diasporic Dialogues: Latin America and the U.S.
12S: 2A 13S: 10
This course investigates how people of African ancestry have forged cultural and political ties across national boundaries in the Americas. Drawing on primary sources, film, and literature, we will examine the transnational dialogue among US African Americans, Afro-Latinos, and Afro-Caribbeans from the 19th century to the present. We will also consider why efforts to mobilize Afro-descendants across the Americas have often been undermined by mutual misunderstandings, conflicting agendas, and differing conceptions of “race” and “nation.” Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: CI (pending approval). Goldthree.
90.4 Africa in the African-American Mind (Identical to History 96)
12S: 2A
This seminar examines African-American political and cultural visions of Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, emphasizing the themes of black nationalism, Pan Africanism and anticolonialism, as well as emigration, repatriation and exile. Attitudes toward Africa have profoundly shaped African-American identity and consciousness. The complexity of these views belie notions of simplistic or essential relationships between “black folk here and there,” and invite critical contemplation of the roles Africa has played in the African-American imaginary. Rickford.
97. Senior Independent Research in African and African American Studies
All Terms: Arrange
For senior African and African American Studies majors toward the culminating experience, with permission of selected instructor and the Chair. (Obtain Proposal Form in the program office.)
98-99. Honors Thesis in African and African American Studies
Two Terms of Senior Year: Arrange
The honors student will pursue the project under guidance of a selected faculty member and with permission of the Chair. See “A Guide to Honors in African and African American Studies” in the program office.