Transfer Student Courses in Afroamerican and African Studies (Division 311)

Fall Term, 1999 (September 8 - December 22, 1999)

To see what Transfer Student courses have been added or changed in Afroamerican and African Studies this week go to What's New This Week.

Introductory Courses

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Hanes Walton

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (SS).

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course introduces and provides a general overview of the area of Afroamerican Studies. It employs a multidisciplinary perspective which combines elements from conventional historical, political, sociocultural, and behavioral orientations in the analysis of Afroamerican culture and institutions. The course format is a lecture-discussion with two weekly lectures. Students meet with GSIs once weekly to discuss course readings and lectures. The course will be supplemented by guest lecturers, selected CAAS colloquia, films, and special projects.

Independent Study and Special Topics

Section 001 – Performance, Art, and Power in Africa.

Instructor(s): Kelly Askew

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will offer students an anthropological perspective on the cultural and aesthetic diversity of Sub-Saharan Africa. We will explore both current and historical art forms with an eye and ear to how their performance and production are intimately related to power relations. Among the topics to be discussed are: cross-cultural understandings of art and aesthetics, art in the service of power (royal regalia, praise-singers, colonialism), art as a mode of resistance, art and development, commercialization, and syncretism in African art forms. While we will explore a wide variety of genres (drama, music, dance, painting, masking, sculpture, poetry, and film), the course is not meant as a survey of African performing and non-performing arts. Instead we will seek to unravel the interconnections between art, culture, and society by asking how art constitutes a potent means of maintaining, contesting, and negotiating power.

Historical Perspectives

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Mitchell

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (SS).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See History 275.001.

Politics, Economics, and Development

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Dorceta Taylor (dorceta@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (SS).

Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course seeks to help students understand the basis of certain environmental beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions. Students will analyze how these attitudes and perceptions influence the way the environment is defined and the kinds of political action people pursue (if they pursue any at all). Students will look at the changing structure, political dynamics, racial and gender composition of the environmental movement. The class will study the role of whites, Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians in developing environmental discourses. The course will examine the environmental justice movement and other forms of grassroots environmentalism.

Independent Study and Special Topics

Section 001 – Economic History of African Americans.

Instructor(s): Warren Whatley (wwhatley@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be repeated for a total of six credits.

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: https://coursetools.ummu.umich.edu/1999/fall/lsa/afam/358/001.nsf

This course will cover the economic history of Africans in America from the 15th century to the present, with emphasis placed on the historical roots of contemporary African-American life. Students will leave the course with well-informed opinions on the following topics: the contributions of African Americans to American economic development; the economic foundations and legacies of racial slavery in the United States; the economic significance and meaning of freedom and citizenship; the economic thought of African Americans; the economic structure of Jim Crow and the responses of African Americans to it; the economic causes and consequences of the Black migration to the north; the economics of the Civil Rights Movement; the changing class structure of the Black community; the economics of Black family structure; markets vs. the state in Black economic development; an accounting of contemporary Black economic resources; African Americans in the global economy; and economic strategies for the future.

Independent Study and Special Topics

Section 004 – Cultural History of Africa: From the 1920s to the Present.

Instructor(s): Dieudonné-Christophe Mbala Nkanga (mbalank@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be repeated for a total of six credits.

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will explore the cultural life of Africa as it relates to its human and material development since the time between the World Wars and the present. In an interdisciplinary approach and with the support of films (fiction and non-fiction), novels, plays, and scholarly writings, the students and the instructor will discuss major cultural issues pertaining to the survival of ancestral tradition practices, the effects of the encounter with Europe (therefore colonialism) and its impacts on the African quest for individual and national identity, education, and gender questions. Other issues of relevance to be discussed will be post-independence cultural and social conditions and the globalization influences over everyday life. The students will be asked to present a short paper (3 to 5 pages) reflecting their reactions over the visual and reading materials for midterm. A final longer paper on a research topic is expected of them at the end of the term.

Individual Behavior, Cultural Systems, and Social Organization

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Teshome Wagaw (twagaw@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is designed for: (1) those who plan a career in international education as teachers or as other specialists; (2) practicing and prospective teachers who desire to broaden their understanding of the process and dynamics of educational development in other cultures, e.g., Africa; and (3) nonspecialists who wish to understand the problems and ramifications of educational development upon the development of national resources. For convenience of treatment, the course will be organized under three broad divisions of time, i.e., indigenous (traditional), colonial, and national education.

Individual Behavior, Cultural Systems, and Social Organization

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Maxwell Owusu (omk@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: Junior standing. (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See Cultural Anthropology 414.001.

Historical Perspectives

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Mamadou Diouf

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (SS).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See History 446.001.

Politics, Economics, and Development

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Jennifer Widner (jwidner@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: Prior or concurrent study of the Third World; Poli. Sci. 465 is recommended but not required. (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See Political Science 459.001.

Politics, Economics, and Development

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Ronald Woods (rcwoods@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Law defines the status and prospects of Blacks, occupies a key role in Black ideological debates and organizational activity, and reflects the dominant crises in United States and world history. This course covers the period from the initial interaction between Blacks and the processes of law in colonial North America to the beginnings of the modern Civil Rights era. It reviews the law of slavery and the slave trade, the Constitution and the status of Blacks in the ante-bellum period, Constitutional and legislative developments during Reconstruction, and the legal circumstance of Blacks in the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Independent Study and Special Topics

Section 002 – Social Psychology of Socioeconomic Development of Africa. Meets with Psychology 458.002.

Instructor(s): Denis Ugwuegbu (dcugwueg@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be repeated for a total of six credits.

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Unfortunately, when economists discuss the development of Africa, they often forget the psychological component of social and economic development. The principal objective of this course is to lead students through lectures, discussions and demonstrations to explore the social/psychological causes of the relative contemporary underdevelopment of Africa. This course will focus on the behavioral aspects of socio-economic development and will cover topics such as colonial underdevelopment policies in Africa, neo-colonial theories of economic development, the new nations of Africa-planning without the people, and the social/psychological principles of development. Special emphasis will be given to topics such as attitudes, beliefs, behavior, motivation, trust, and development. Finally, the place of education and human resources planning as the center of African socioeconomic development efforts will be examined.

Since this course is quite unique and will attract students with various educational backgrounds, students who are ready to make insightful and innovative contributions to the understanding of the causes and possible irradiation of development problems in Africa are encouraged to register for this course.

Individual Behavior, Cultural Systems, and Social Organization

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Melvin Williams (mddoublu@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: One introductory course in the social sciences. (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

See Cultural Anthropology 451.001.

Politics, Economics, and Development

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Penny Von Eschen

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will move from a consideration of classics in Pan-Africanism through recent debates on race, anticolonialism, and nation-building. We will carefully consider contemporary criticisms of these projects as marginalizing issues of women and gender. Yet we will also consider Pan-Africanism as extraordinarily productive of emanicipatory projects.

Readings will include:

W.E.B. Du Bois, The World and Africa;
C.L.R. James, A History of Pan-African Revolt;
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth;
Wilson Moses, The Golden Age of Black Nationalism;
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic;
Lewis Gordon, Her Majesty's Other Children;
and Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia.