AFRC1001 - Introduction to Africana Studies
Status
A
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
1
Title (text only)
Introduction to Africana Studies
Term
2025A
Subject area
AFRC
Section number only
001
Section ID
AFRC1001001
Course number integer
1001
Meeting times
TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Jasmine Johnson
Marc Alexander Ridgell
Marc Alexander Ridgell
Description
The term Africana emerged in public discourse amid the social, political, and cultural turbulence of the 1960s. The roots of the field, however, are much older,easily reaching back to oral histories and writings during the early days of the Trans-Atlantic African slave trade. The underpinnings of the field continued to grow in the works of enslaved Africans, abolitionists and social critics of the nineteenth century, and evolved in the twentieth century by black writers, journalists, activists, and educators as the sought to document African descended people's lives. Collectively, their work established African Studies as a discipline,epistemological standpoint and political practice dedicated to understanding the multiple trajectories and experiences of black people in the world throughout history. As an ever-transforming field of study, this course will examine the genealogy, major discourses, and future trajectory of Africana Studies. Using primary sources such as maps and letters, as well as literature and performance, our study of Africana will begin with continental Africa, move across the Atlantic during the middle passage and travel from the coasts of Bahia in the 18th century to the streets of Baltimore in the 21st century. The course is constructed around major themes in Black intellectual thought including: retentions and transferal, diaspora, black power, meanings of blackness, uplift and nationalism. While attending to narratives and theories that concern African descended people in the United States, the course is uniquely designed with a focus on gender and provides context for the African diasporic experience in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Course number only
1001
Fulfills
Humanties & Social Science Sector
Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
Use local description
No