Courses Offered

‣ Introduction to African History

Course Details
Description: Introduction to the history of Africa with an emphasis on the modern era.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Also Known As: His 170: Introduction to African History
Instruction Type(s)

‣ The African American Experience I

Course Details
Description: General overview including focus on race, economy, institutions, and key historical periods.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ The African American Experience II

Course Details
Description: Survey of black experience using the study of culture and the arts as a major focus.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Judicial System and the African American Experience

Course Details
Description: An examination of the historical and contemporary relationships and interactions between the black population and the legal system in America. Concepts covered will include considerations of definitions of criminal conduct, societal responses to minority pressures and demands for justice, as well as intergroup relations between nondominant ethnic groups and enforcement components of society.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Peoples of Africa

Course Details
Description: This course examines the peoples of modern Sub-Saharan Africa, including patterns of African religions, the arts, politics, economics, and societies.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Politics of Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

Course Details
Description: American legal and political freedoms, judicial policy making, criminal justice, civil rights.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Experiences of Black Mississippians

Course Details
Description: Cross-disciplinary focus on the social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of African American history in the state with the largest concentration of African Americans in the United States.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ Political Systems of Sub-Saharan Africa

Course Details
Description: Analysis of the political systems of sub-Saharan Africa and their development from the interaction of African and European social forces.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ African American Politics

Course Details
Description: An overview of the interaction between African Americans and the American political system.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Race, Gender, Science in Early America

Course Details
Description: This course examines conceptions and experiences of "gendered racial health" from the colonial period through Reconstruction.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African American History to 1865

Course Details
Description: Black American history from West Africa to 1865, emphasizing the role of black leaders and their struggle against racial segregation and oppression.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African American History Since 1865

Course Details
Description: A survey of the history of black Americans from the Civil War to the present, emphasizing the role of black leaders, the struggle against oppression, and the evolution of race relations.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African American Feminist Thought

Course Details
Description: Exploration of the micro-level and institutional intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality as articulated by African American women intellectuals from the 19th century to present with particular emphasis on social scientific theory and methodology. Topics include: early black feminist thought; comparisons of black and white women's feminisms; third-wave black feminist thought; sexuality, the body, and hip-hop.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Introduction to Field Work Techniques

Course Details
Description: Examination of theory, practice, and tradition of documentary field research, including the use of photography, film and video, and tape recorders. Special emphasis on documentary study of the American South.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Anthropology of Blues Culture

Course Details
Description: Examines the blues in all its myriad social and cultural roles and contexts, using the anthropological models and approaches of the oral and musical arts, linguistics, ethnohistory, ethnography, religion, and ritual analysis among others.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African American Literary Tradition I Begin to 1920

Course Details
Description: Begins with the oral tradition in Africa and continues with the evolution in form from slave narrations to autobiographies and novels; the incorporation of folk and popular materials into formal literature, and the idea of a literary tradition. Writers include Wheatley, Hammon, Equiano, Brown, Douglass, DuBois, Chesnutt, Dunbar, and Johnson.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African American Literary Tradition II 1920-Present

Course Details
Description: Covers modern African American literature, concentrating on poetry and the novel. Attention to modern uses of folk materials; criticism and aesthetic movements, problems in form, audience, genre; politics and the writer with focus on the emergence of African American female writers in contemporary literature. Selected works by Brown, Hurston, Hughes, Toomer, Wright, Ellison, Walker, Morrison, and selected playwrights.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Topics in African American Studies

Course Details
Description: Explores important themes from the perspectives of historical, cultural, and social/behavioral studies. Topics will vary.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ Topics in African American Studies Abroad

Course Details
Description: Students do departmentally approved course work at a foreign university. May be repeated with permission of director of the African American Studies program.
Credits: 1-6 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Study Out-of-Country: Traditional

‣ African American Women's History

Course Details
Description: An introduction to African American women's history, exploring the epistemology and scholarships of the field.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African Literature

Course Details
Description: A survey of the development of African literatures in the context of African history and of the political, social, and cultural forces that have influenced various African countries.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)

‣ Caribbean Literature

Course Details
Description: A survey of Caribbean literatures from pre-Columbian cultures to the present. Emphasis on the development of Caribbean literatures in the context of Caribbean history and of the political, social, and cultural forces that shaped different Caribbean societies.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)

‣ African and African American Arts

Course Details
Description: Interdisciplinary approach to the continuities between traditional and contemporary African and African American arts, with emphasis on architecture, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, basketry, jewelry, dance, and music.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)

‣ Sub-Saharan Africa

Course Details
Description: History of Africa and African cultures from the earliest times to the present.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Survey of Black American Art

Course Details
Description: History and appreciation of the art of black Americans with emphasis on painting, sculpture, architecture, and other plastic art forms.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)

‣ Studies in Black Popular Culture

Course Details
Description: Using a broad definition of black popular culture, this course will consider the relationship between representation and everyday life and pay particular attention to the production, dissemination, and consumption of black images produced by both blacks and non-blacks in the public arena.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ Race and Ethnicity

Course Details
Description: Economic, political, cultural, and historical dimensions of contemporary racial and ethnic relations in both U.S. and international contents.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Pre-requisites: Soc 101: Introductory Sociology I (Minimum grade: D)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ Major African American Writers

Course Details
Description: A comparative look at the development and impact of major African American writers.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ Readings in US Black Feminism

Course Details
Description: Students will study the development, expression, ideology, and praxis of the politics African American women have developed to simultaneously counter both racism and sexism.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ Historical Perspectives on Slavery in the Americas

Course Details
Description: Examination of the roles of Europeans, Africans, and the nations of North and South America in the international slave trade and the institution of slavery in the western hemisphere.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ History of African Americans in Sport

Course Details
Description: A historical survey of African Americans and their roles in various sports, beginning with black participation in the late 19th century and chronicling that involvement into the 21st century.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)

‣ Comparative Black Literatures

Course Details
Description: A study of various black literatures, including African, African American and African-Caribbean in a comparative socio-cultural context.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)

‣ The New Negro Era

Course Details
Description: Students will study the politics, artistic production, and changing natures of African American identity and racial politics in the period between World War I and World War II.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ The Civil Rights Era

Course Details
Description: The African American struggle for civil rights, emphasizing the role of African Americans, the resistance of other racial and ethnic groups, and the role of federal and state agents/agencies from the perspective of political and social history.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African American Studies Senior Seminar

Course Details
Description: Capstone of the African American studies major using the seminar format to integrate interdisciplinary approaches to themes in African American culture, history, and institutions.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ African American Studies Directed Study

Course Details
Description: Individual study of an issue or topic in an area of specialization where the student has demonstrated the interest and competence necessary for independent research. The issue topic must be selected in conference with appropriate faculty.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Independent Study: Traditional

‣ African American Studies Seminar

Course Details
Description: Research, using the seminar format to focus on the African American experience during key historical periods: African origins, slave trade era, slavery, emancipation, urban migrations, and social and political integration. Special attention will be given to the socioeconomic, cultural, and political development of African Americans and the context within which it has occurred. Course content will vary.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ Research in African American Studies

Course Details
Description: Intellectual history of research about the African American experience and the rise of African American studies. Critical examination of past and current research and its significance to various disciplines.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ Historiography of African American History

Course Details
Description: An introduction to the research methods and principles of historiography as applied to specific events and issues in African American history. The course will focus on how African American history has been, and is being written. Topics include the major historians, theories, sources, uses of authentic materials, and fields of investigation. Does not satisfy history department M.A. 500-level historiography requirements.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional

‣ African American Musical Tradition

Course Details
Description: A study of the historical and stylistic development of African American music from ancient Africa to present.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ History of Jazz

Course Details
Description: A historical survey of American jazz with an emphasis on the musical styles and genres of specific African American composers and musicians.
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Lecture: Traditional

‣ African American Literature

Course Details
Description: Selected Afrrican American prose, poetry, fiction, and drama, with emphasis on major figures, themes, periods, and movements. (May be repeated once for credit).
Credits: 3 Credit(s)
Instruction Type(s): Seminar: Traditional