Introduction to African American Studies

Catalog description

This course introduces students to some of the critical themes, concepts, and contemporary issues surrounding Black Americans in the United States with an underlying interdisciplinary framework. The emphasis of investigation in this course will be comparative, primarily historical, sociological and literary. Students will specifically engage with questions of difference and cultural representation as each relates to the construction and deconstruction of essentialized categories of racial, ethnic, cultural, and national identities. Examining the relationship between historical and contemporary policies and representations of Black Americans will be central in understanding their lived experiences in the twenty-first century. Finally, students will gain an understanding of the complexity of the African American identity and socio-cultural issues as they relate to economic and political resources/organizing/activism, and sociological engagement with current and emerging issues of race, nationalism, and power.