Historical Perspectives
230/Hist. 274. Survey of Afro-American
History I. (3). (SS).
This lecture/discussion course surveys major themes, events, and personages
in the history of Africans and people of African descent in the Americas,
and in particular North America, though the end of the American Civil War.
The survey begins on African continent, follows captive Africans across
the Atlantic, and then traces the contours of the struggle against slavery.
Themes to be covered include: slavery and slave resistance; African-American
culture; free Blacks, North and South; Black participation in the abolitionist
movement; the role of African Americans in the Civil War. Students will
read a variety of texts, including examples of Black testimony as well as
the work of contemporary cultural and social historians. Assignments include
in-class examinations and a comprehensive final, short essays, and class
presentations.
Literature and the Arts
108/Hist. of Art 108. Introduction to African Art. (4). (HU).
See History of Art 108. (Quarcoopome)
342/Theatre 233. Acting and the Black Experience. Permission of
instructor (brief interview). (3). (HU).
See Theatre and Drama 233.
(Simmons)
Independent Study and Special Topics
103. First Year Social Science Seminar. (3). (SS).
Section 001 - Barrel of a Pen: African Politics in Literature. Since
the end of World War II Africans have lived in an intensely political era.
The struggle for independence, decolonization, the rise of authoritarian
regimes, the variety of experiments and discourses in appropriate political
frameworks for development have made politics central to social life in
sub-Saharan Africa. African writers have not escaped its impulse, and have
sought to give expression to it in their writings. This course is designed
to explore, in particular, the nature of the political developments that
have taken place in these times in the context of the nature of the response
of African writers to it. (Twumasi)