Conceptions and enactments of sex and sexuality have been central to the experiences of people of African descent in what is now defined as the United States of America. In the seminar Black Intimate Life: Histories of Black Sexuality, students will analyze the centrality of sexual experiences and narratives to the formation of black communal life and “blackness” as a racial category from the 16th through the early 21st centuries. Black intimate life refers to the diverse intimate relationships, kinship networks, reproductive capacities, gendered behavior, and sexual acts of people of African Descent as well as the stories told about these ways of being. Three questions animate the course. First, in what ways have black Americans responded to disparaging and racist narratives about their intimate lives socially, politically and culturally? Second, how have individuals and collectivities exercised agency and meaning making through sexual/gender identities and expressions? And third, what are the challenges of studying and writing about sexuality and intimacy in the past? The course will discuss a range of topics including black women’s reproductive agency, interracial sexual intimacies, black queer intimacies/ identities, the politics of respectability, black family formation/ marriage, and sex work. Class materials are profoundly interdisciplinary and include poetry, short stories/essays, novels, music, film, photographs, newspapers and interdisciplinary scholarship.