Courses Archive

Examination of theoretical issues in urban anthropology and sociology pertaining to the United States as a multicultural society. Comparative analysis of the ecology and social structure of African American, Native American, Asian American, Mexican American and Afro-Caribbean urban communities with special emphasis on social class, ethnicity, and culture.

This course assesses the role of information technology in the digitalization of society by focusing on the deployment of e-government, e-commerce, e-learning, the digital city, telecommuting, virtual communities, internet time, the virtual office, and the geography of cyber space. The course will also discuss the role of information technology in the governance and economic development of society. Also listed as American Studies C134.

156AC. Poetry for the People: Introduction to the Art of Poetry. (4) Course may be repeated for credit. Two to three hours of lecture and one to two hours of discussion per week. A large lecture/discussion class which introduces students to poetry as culture, history, criticism, politics, and practice. Focusing comparatively on poetry from three American racial/ethnic groups, this course requires students to learn both the technical structure of various forms of poetry as well as the world views which inform specific poetic traditions. The groups and traditions vary from semester to semester. This course satisfies the Arts and Literature breadth requirement. This course satisfies the American cultures requirement.

We will closely read six of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s novels, as well as some of her public addresses, considering the works in relation to:  her interest in creating what she calls “village literature” and in writing literature that does “trope work” that intervenes in American representations of blackness and racial identity; her contribution to the renaissance of black women’s writing (and African American literature in general) in the 1980s and 1990s; the techniques of so-called magic realism; the influence of feminism and the Black Power/Black Arts Movement in her representational strategies. 

This course uses film to investigate the central role of race in American culture and history. Using films as the primary texts, the course will explore the relationship between these films and the social and political contexts from which they emerged. Looking at both mainstream and independent cinema, the course will chart the continuities and varieties of representations and negotiations of "race." The course spans the 20th century, covering (among other topics) Jim Crow in silent film, Hollywood westerns and melodramas, borderland crime dramas, documentary film, and experimental cinema. This class will concentrate on the history of African Americans in film, but we will also watch movies that consider how the overlapping histories of whiteness and ethnicity, American Indians, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, the "Third World" and "multiculturalism" have been represented in film. Themes covered include representing race and nation; the borderlands; passing and miscegenation; the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality.

This course invites students to explore the importance of the African American church as social institution in the social, organizational and political lives of the African American community.  While the black church was the primary social center to organize liberation and social change during anti-slavery and the early/modern civil rights movements, in more recent times its relevance and meaning for shaping political change has been questioned given notions of a “post-racial society.”  As a student you will examine: (1) the political power of African American churches during slavery and black nationalist politics, paying attention to black Christian churches’ racial representation of “the black Jesus”,  (2) the role the black church in shaping political identities and conversations about race during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, and (3) the shifting political practices of African American Churches from liberation and racial equality to institutions of economic prosperity and “praise” during the rise of hip hop and emergence of “post-racial” political ideologies.  Over the course of the semester we will ask: (1) do representations of “the black Jesus” among black nationalist churches still impact the political identities and work of African American congregations?; (2) do current messages of “prosperity” and “praise” in televangelist led African American churches deny new forms of racism and limit political practices focused on ending racial inequality?; and (3) can the political practices of African American churches that deny “post-racial” ideas not only address racial inequality, but also welcome interrelated inequalities of race, class, gender and sexual orientation, given conservative politics of black congregations?  Students will have the opportunity to visit local black churches, talk with church leaders, and study the role of black church music in shaping the politics and social lives of African Americans.  

138. Black Nationalism. (4) Four hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: 5B. Examines the concept of black nationalism and its historical and intellectual development. Special attention will be given to the role of African American religion and the attempt to develop black socialism.

123. Social and Political Thought in the Diaspora. (3) Three hours of lecture per week. An examination of social and political thought of Africans traveling across the Diaspora, with particular focus on the 19th and 20th centuries.

122. African American Families in American Society. (3) Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: 5B or introductory course in sociology. Examines the historical roles and functions of families in the development of black people in America from slavery to the present.

117. African Americans in the Industrial Age, 1865-1970. (4) Three hours of lecture and one hour of discussion per week. With emphasis given to the organization of labor after slavery, this course will explore the history of African American cultural, institutions and protest traditions from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement.