Official Yale College course information can be found at the Yale Online Course Information website.     

Undergraduate Courses - Fall 2008

(* indicates seminar course, G indicates that an undergraduate course is available to graduate students as well)

AFAM 110a, FREEDOM AND IDENTITY IN BLACK CULTURES. Elizabeth Alexander
Mon.& Wed. 11:35 a.m. – 12:50 p.m. w/ 1 HTBA
Introduction to major themes and topics in African American experiences; basic methods of interdisciplinary analysis and interpretation in African American studies. Topics include black economic, political, and social institutions; self-identity and social status; literature, art, film, and music; and political and social issues and their relationship to changing social structures.

AFAM 112a/HSAR 379a, NEW YORK MAMBO: MICROCOSM OF BLACK CREATIVITY. Robert F. Thompson
Tue, & Thu. 11:35 a.m. - 12:50 p.m.
The rise, development, and philosophic achievement of the world of New York mambo and salsa. Emphasis on Palmieri, Cortijo, Roena, Harlow, and Colón. Examination of parallel traditions, e.g., New York Haitian art, Dominican merengue, reggae and rastas of Jamaican Brooklyn, and the New York school of Brazilian capoeira.

AFAM 160a/HIST 184a, AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY 1500 - 1888. Edward Rugemer
Tue. & Thu. 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. w/ 1 HTBA
The history of the peoples of African descent throughout the Americas, from the first African American societies of the sixteenth century through the century-long process of emancipation.

AFAM 238a/MUSI 266a, FUNK: THE RE-AFRICANIZATION OF AMERICAN POPULAR SONG. Michael Veal
Tue. and Thu. 1:00 - 2:15 p.m.
A survey of African American dance music in the late 1960s through the early 1980s typified by artists such as James Brown, Earth, Wind and Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, and Sly and the Family Stone. Examination of music in the context of the period of African American cultural history during which it emerged.

*AFAM 279a/*AMST 273a/*WGSS 342a, BLACK WOMEN’S LITERATURE. Naomi Pabst
Thursdays 3:30 - 5:20 p.m.
Examination of black women’s literary texts from the post-civil rights era. Exploration of the ways these writers construct and contest the cultural, ideological, and political parameters of black womanhood. Topics include narrative strategy, modes of representation, and textual depictions of the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, color, ethnicity, nationality, class, and generation. Texts placed within the context of black women’s literary legacies.

*AFAM 292a/*AMST 292a, INTERRACIAL LITERATURE. Naomi Pabst
Thursdays 1:30 - 3:20 p.m.
Examination of interracial and black subjectivity as represented within a selection of postemancipation literary texts. Focus on black/white color line crossing, the trope of the tragic mulatto, and theories of difference and hybridity.

*AFAM 294a/*ENGL 294a, AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE I: 1740 TO 1900. Michele Stepto
Mon. and Wed. 11:35 a.m. – 12:50 p.m. 81 Wall #201
The literary reaction to slavery; the evolution in form from slave narratives to auto-biographies and fictions; the incorporation of folk and popular materials into formal literature. Authors include Phyllis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Charles Chesnutt, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and James Weldon Johnson.

*AFAM 308a, ORAL HISTORY AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Mary Barr
Tuesdays, 7:00 – 8:50 p.m.
The theory and practice of oral history. Oral source material as a potential means of understanding the African American experience including slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and Hurricane Katrina. Students will design and implement their own oral history research project.

*AFAM 309a, CIVIL RIGHTS, COLD WAR POLITICS, AND DECOLONIZATION, 1940 – 1975. Julia Erin Wood
Wednesdays, 3:30 – 5:20 p.m.
This course explores the transnational history of the mid-twentieth century civil rights movement in the United States, examining its relationships with the Cold War and international decolonization and liberation movements.

*AFAM 322a, RACE, CLASS, AND EDUCATION. Mary Barr
Mondays, 3:30 – 5:20 p.m.
Are schools the great equalizer? Readings focus on the question of stratification and how systems of schooling maintain or alleviate inequality. This course examines the relationship between privilege, power, and schooling. Throughout the semester we investigate the link between schools and societal stratification, addressing how educational institutions contribute to both social mobility and the reproduction of the prevailing social order.

*AFAM 326a/*SOCY 324a, AFRICAN AMERICANS AND SOCIAL THOUGHT. Alondra Nelson
Tuesdays, 2:30 – 4:20 p.m.
Exploration of historical and contemporary writings by theorists of African American life, focusing on kinship, root-seeking, and diaspora.

*AFAM 333a/*ANTH 315a, CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY: METHODS, ETHICS, POETICS. Jafari Allen
Tuesdays, 1:30 - 3:20 p.m.
This course will provide theoretical, methodological and aesthetic models drawn mostly form critical race theory, post-colonial theory, queer theory and feminisms -- to be critiqued, followed, rejected and/or reformed in student's own research practice, and reflected in a final critical ethnographic project.

*AFAM 347a, CARIBBEAN LIVES: PSYCHO-SOCIAL ASPECTS. Ezra Griffith
Wednesdays, 2:30 - 4:20 p.m.
A study of the development over time of individuals living in the English-speaking Caribbean. Attention both to the portraiture of the lives and to the psycho-social context in which the individuals lived. Discussion of the unique elements in Caribbean life that facilitated or inhibited the developmental process.

*AFAM 354a/*SOCY 353a, TECHNOLOGY, IDENTITY AND CULTURE. Alondra Nelson
Wednesdays, 1:30 – 3:20 p.m.
A consideration of the social dynamics of information technology, focusing on issues of labor, class, gender, and race. Readings are drawn from the sociology of scientific knowledge, sociology of science and technology, and contemporary cultural theory.

*AFAM 367a/*AMST 431a/*ER&M 344a/*WGSS 455a, REPRESENTATION AND THE BLACK FEMALE. Hazel Carby
Tuesdays, 2:30 - 4:20 p.m. 81 Wall Street, Room 201
Examination of how some black women have responded to the racialization of societies and to the culture and politics of gendering and sexuality in the twentieth century in Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas. Forms and media include fiction, poetry, autobiography, paintings, sculpture, performance art and film, and music.

*AFAM 369a/*ENGL 364a/*LITR 271a/*THST 369a, AFRICAN AMERICAN THEATER. Paige McGinley Tuesdays, 3:30 – 5:20.
Intensive study of African American dramatic literature and theater history. Topics include the theater of the Harlem Renaissance, Federal Theater Project, Black Arts Movement, and plays by Bonner, Hansberry, Kennedy, Bullins, Shange, and Wilson.

*AFAM 383a/*AFST 476a/*FREN 376a, THE TWO CONGOS: LITERATURE AND CULTURE IN THE HEART OF AFRICA. Christopher L. Miller
Tuesdays, 1:30 – 3:20 p.m.
An interdisciplinary approach to two nations, sharing a name, a river, and elements of culture but divided by colonial heritage (one Belgian, one French). How the two Congos evolved side by side, through a history of genocide, colonialism, dictatorship, and war; the emergence of a rich literary tradition. Primary focus on literature but with reference to history, anthropology, art, politics, and music. The course will move from the outside (Heart of Darkness; Tintin; The Poisonwood Bible) to the inside (numerous authors from both Congos, including Dongala, Sony Labou Tansi, Lopes, Mudimbe, and Mabanckou). Attention to the cultural politics of a global event: the 1974 Ali-Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match. Reading knowledge of French required.

*AFAM 400a/*ER&M 336a/*FILM 422a, BLACK AMERICAN PARIS. Terri Francis
Wed. and Fri., 1:00 to 2:15 p.m.
Histories and representation of African American cultural production in Paris, France. The phenomenon of African American migration, expatriation, and success in Paris from the early eighteenth century to the present. Groups of Americans who made a home in Paris and the French cultural context in which they lived.

*AFAM 403a/*ER&M 331a/*THST 431a, BLACK FEMINIST MUSICAL SUBCULTURES. Daphne Brooks Thursdays, 2:30 – 4:20 p.m. 81 Wall Street, Room 201.
How might we re-interrogate subculture theories through the dual prisms of race and gender? This course considers the ways in which black female cultural producers have stylized and innovated counter hegemonic performance practices within the context of American popular music culture, from the postbellum era through the present day.

*AFAM 408a/*AMST 460a/*ENGL 443a, TWENTIETH-CENTURY AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY. Elizabeth Alexander
Tuesdays 1:30 – 3:20 p.m.
The African American practice of poetry between 1900 and 1960, especially of sonnets, ballads, sermonic, and blues poems. Poets studied include Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, and Robert Hayden. Includes sessions at the Beinecke Library for inspection and discussion of original editions, manuscripts, letters, and other archival material.

*AFAM 435a/*THST 420a/*WGSS 344a, BLACK BEAUTY: CONCERT DANCE IN THE AFRICANIST GRAIN. Thomas DeFrantz
Tuesdays, 7:00 – 8:50 p.m.
A comparison of the work of four African American choreographers with the study of aesthetic theory and historical treatments of black concert dance in America, this course seeks to engage students critically in the developing fields of African American dance documentation and interpretation, and to enable them to understand and articulate the key questions and to formulate their own criticism and theory.

*AFAM 471a, INDEPENDENT STUDY: AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES. By appointment with faculty.
Independent research under the direction of a member of the department on a special topic in African American Studies not covered in other courses. Permission of the director of undergraduate studies and of the instructor directing the research is required. A proposal signed by the instructor must be submitted to the director of undergraduate studies by the end of the second week of classes. The instructor meets with the student regularly, typically for an hour a week, and the student writes a final paper or a series of short essays.

*AFAM 480a, SENIOR COLLOQUIUM: AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES. Deborah Thomas
Thursdays 1:30 - 3:20 p.m. 81 Wall Street Room 406.
A seminar on issues and approaches in African American studies. The colloquium offers students practical help in refining their senior essay topics and developing research strategies. Students discuss assigned readings and share their research experiences and findings. During the term, students are expected to make substantial progress on their senior essays; they are required to submit a prospectus, an annotated bibliography, and a draft of one-quarter of the essay.

*AFAM 491a, THE SENIOR ESSAY. Emilie Townes
1 HTBA
Independent research on the senior essay. The senior essay form must be submitted to the director of undergraduate studies by the end of the second week of classes. The senior essay should be completed according to the following schedule: (1) end of the sixth week of classes: a rough draft of the entire essay; (2) end of the last week of classes (fall term) or three weeks before the end of classes (spring term): two copies of the final version of the essay.

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Undergraduate courses - Spring 2009

AFAM 162b/AMST 162b/ HIST 187b, AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY: FROM EMANCIPATION TO THE PRESENT. Jonathan Holloway
Mon. & Wed. 10:30 a.m. - 11:20 a.m. w/1 HTBA.
An examination of the African American experience since 1861. Emphasis on African Americans in the Civil War and Reconstruction; the thought and leadership of Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Du Bois, Garvey, King, and Malcolm X; the urban experience of African Americans; the civil rights movement and its aftermath.

AFAM 172b/HIST 119b, THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION ERA, 1845-1877. David Blight
Tue. and Thu. 11:35 a.m. - 12:25 w 1/HTBA.
The causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War. A search for the multiple meanings of a transformative event, including national, sectional, racial, constitutional, social, gender, intellectual, and individual dimensions.

AFAM 178b/AFST 188bG, FROM WEST AFRICA TO THE BLACK AMERICAS: THE BLACK ATLANTIC VISUAL TRADITION. Robert F. Thompson
Tue. & Thu. 11:35 a.m. - 12:50 p.m.
Art, music, and dance in the history of key classical civilizations south of the Sahara - Mali, Asante, Dahomey, Yoruba, Ejgham, Kongo - and their impact on New World art and music, especially rock, blues, North American black painting of the past ten years, and black artists of Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil.

AFAM 200b/FILM 270b, SPIKE LEE. Terry Francis
Fridays 1:30 - 3:20 p.m.
Survey of Spike Lee’s films and writings, in the contexts of African American cultural movements and American independent films.

AFAM 229b/AMST 229b/ ER&M 231b/SOCY 198b, HEALTH SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. Alondra Nelson
Tue. and Thu. 10:30 - 11:20 a.m. 1/HTBA.
Examination of how and why groups coalesce around issues of health and illness. Issues include racial discrimination and health; women“s health and reproductive rights; sickle-cell anemia; environmental justice; breast cancer; and HIV/AIDS.

*AFAM 247b/*HIST 171b, INTERRACIAL IDENTITY. Laurie Woodard
Tuesdays 1:30 - 3:20 p.m.
This course examines the representation of hybrid or interracial identity in literature beginning with its earliest known usage in the 5th century BC through the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to the most recent turn of the century. We will consider questions of identity formation, representation, the “other,” and the creation and perpetuation of stereotypes as we explore the works of authors including Cleobulous, Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, and Philip Roth.

AFAM 250b, BLACKS AND THE LAW. Judge Flemming Norcott
Mon. & Wed. 4:30 - 5:45 p.m.
An exploration of the ways in which legislative and judicial policy has affected the legal and socioeconomic status of African Americans from slavery to the present. Constitutional concepts of equality and integration examined.

*AFAM 257b/*HIST 475b, PERFORMING BLACK WOMANHOOD. Laurie Woodard
Mondays 1:30 - 3:20 p.m.
This course explores the ways in which African American women have attempted to define themselves and to claim control of their bodies, representation, and rights as citizens of the United States. We will look closely at the lives and images of a number of African American women including Josephine Baker and Suzan Lori Parks and read a variety of primary texts including novels, film, music, autobiography, play scripts, and poetry as well as secondary literature.

*AFAM 307b/*AMST 452b, HARLEM RENAISSANCE. Jennifer Wood
Wednesdays 3:30 - 5:20 p.m.
A study of the literature created during or concerning the Harlem, or New Negro, Renaissance. Some consideration of the Jazz Age. Writers include Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Claude McKay, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Carl Van Vechten, Langston Hughes, and James Weldon Johnson.

AFAM 332b/PLSC 223b, ETHNIC POLITICS IN THE U.S. Khalila Brown-Dean
Tue. and Thu. 10:30 - 11:20 a.m. 1/HTBA.
This course examines the impact of ethnic and racial group identity on political behavior in the United States. We will examine the political experiences of major ethnic and racial groups in the United States such as Irish, Italian, Asian, Jewish, Native and African Americans as well as Latinos and Muslims. A number of key policy issues as immigration, education, and housing will also be explored.

*AFAM 368b/*AMST 321b, INTERRACIALITY AND HYBRIDITY. Naomi Pabst
Thursdays 3:30 - 5:20 p.m.
Examination of mixed-race matters in both literary and critical writings, primarily within the black/white schema. Historical and current questions of black and interracial identity; the contemporary “mixed race movement” and the emerging rubric of “critical mixed race studies”; historical genealogy of interraciality and hybridity. Analysis of long-standing debates on race mixing in the realms of legal classification, transracial adoption, census taking, grassroots movements, the discursive, the ideological, and the popular.

*AFAM 374b/*AMST 374b/*ER&M 333b, BLACK TRAVEL AND TRANSNATIONALITY. Naomi Pabst
Thursdays 1:30 - 3:20 p.m.
Examination of literary and critical writings on African American and black diasporic travel and transnational movement. Emphasis on representation and narrative strategy. The history of black transnational border crossing and its influence on the cultural, political, and ideological parameters of black identity. Forms, varieties, conflicts, and dilemmas of black transnational movement, travel, and tourism.

*AFAM 387b/*MUSI 398b, THE ELECTRIC MUSIC OF MILES DAVIS. Michael Veal
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 5:20 p.m.
This course covers the controversial “electric period” of Miles Davis, spanning the years 1968 through 1975. We will survey the work of Davis in this period, as well as the contemporaneous work of several of his sidemen: Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Josef Zawinul. Works studied will include: Filles de Kilimanjaro; In a Silent Way; Bitches Brew; On the Corner; Agharta; Pangaea.

*AFAM 410b/*WGSS 410b, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES. Deborah Thomas
Thursdays, 1:30 - 3:20 p.m. 81 Wall Street, Room 406.
An interdisciplinary, theoretical approach to the study of race, nation, and ethnicity in the African diaspora. Topics include class, gender, color, and sexuality; the dynamics of Pan-Africanism, neocolonialism, and contemporary black nationalism.

*AFAM 415b/*SOCY 366b, RACE, RACISMS, AND SOCIAL THEORY. Alondra Nelson
Tuesdays, 2:30 - 4:20 p.m.
Historical and theoretical issues deriving from the comparative study of races and racisms, with special attention to the relationship between the category of “race” and the development of the human sciences. A core consideration of “race” as a problem in the sociology of knowledge is supplemented by material from other disciplines: history, philosophy, economics, politics, and literature.

*AFAM 472b, INDEPENDENT STUDY: AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES. Faculty. 1 HTBA.
Independent research under the direction of a member of the department on a special topic in African American Studies not covered in other courses. Permission of the director of undergraduate studies and of the instructor directing the research is required. A proposal signed by the instructor must be submitted to the director of undergraduate studies by the end of the second week of classes. The instructor meets with the student regularly, typically for an hour a week, and the student writes a final paper or a series of short essays. May be elected for one or two terms.

*AFAM 491b, THE SENIOR ESSAY. Emilie Townes
Independent research on the senior essay. The senior essay form must be submitted to the director of undergraduate studies by the end of the second week of classes. The senior essay should be completed according to the following schedule: (1) end of the sixth week of classes: a rough draft of the entire essay; (2) end of the last week of classes (fall term) or three weeks before the end of classes (spring term): two copies of the final version of the essay.

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Undergraduate Courses - Summer 2008

Summer Session I

AFAM S308/AMST S354, THE ROLE OF PRISONS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY. Sarah Haley

AFAM S256/SOCY S256, RACE IN THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY. Mary Barr
Mon., Wed., Fri. 1:00 - 3:15 p.m.
This course is a survey of some of the most influential ethnographic studies on race and community. We will read both classic and contemporary works, engage with general methodological questions, and look at how scholarship of this sort has changed and expanded over time. Assigned texts focus on lived experiences of race in neighborhoods located in such cities as Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit. Class discussions will critically examine themes from the readings including segregation, economic disparity, and public debates about the "culture of poverty." Students will write a research paper on the impact of race on a neighborhood of their choice.

Summer Session II

AFAM S309/HIST S186, NEW NEGRO ARTS AND POLITICS. Laurie Woodard
Mon., Wed., Fri. 1:00 - 3:15 p.m.
This course is an exploration of the link between cultural production and political activism during the New Negro Renaissance. Through an interdisciplinary approach, students will gain an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon as a multifaceted movement for social and political change.

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Courses in other departments that count toward the undergraduate major in African American Studies

COLLEGE SEMINAR COURSE FOR AFAM CREDIT:
CSTC 350b, ORAL HISTORY AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Mary Barr
Mondays 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. TC 204
An examination of oral history as a research method and as a tool for understanding the African American experience. Oral sources are often correctives to conventional historical records, and they make for a history that is richer, more vivid, and more inclusive. Assigned texts will emphasize the lived experience of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and Hurricane Katrina. Students will design and pursue their own oral history research project.

*SOCY 385bG/*WGSS 437b, RACE, GENDER, AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Averil Clarke
Date - time

*THST 427b/*JAPN 300b, GESTURE IN JAPANESE AND AFRICAN AMERICAN PERFORMANCE. Reginald Jackson
For description see under Theater Studies.

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AFAM 647a/ANTH 591a/WGSS 689a, BLACK FEMINIST THEORY AND PRAXIS. Jafari Allen
Wednesdays, 9:25 - 11:15 a.m.
In this course we will analyze Black feminisms both as political space and scholarly choice. This framework will enable us to examine the continuities between Black feminist and womanist theorizing in diverse locations, as well as to explore how different embodied experiences-- including histories, geographies and genealogies--condition divergent perspectives. This course finds theory in literature, activism, art, ethnography and everyday life. Likewise, we will demand elements of praxis from academic production.

AFAM 697a/HIST 713a, RESEARCH IN SLAVERY AND ABOLITION. Edward Rugemer
Thursdays, 2:30 – 4:20 p.m.
This is a research seminar in the history of slavery and its abolition in the Atlantic World from the emergence of African slavery in the late sixteenth century through the final emancipations of the 1880s. Potential topics include slavery, slave resistance, rebellions, abolitionism, and emancipation.

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AFAM 847b/AFST 847b/CPLT 947b/FREN 947b/, AFRICAN CARIBBEAN CONNECTIONS IN FRENCH. Christopher L. Miller
Thursdays, 1:30– 3:20 p.m.
The intertwined literary and cultural relations between Africa and the Caribbean, as established by the salve trade, French colonialism, and globalization. Focus on changing models of linkage and exile, beginning with nineteenth-century movements in Haiti and in France; two versions of Negritude; social realism; independence; "creoleness." Authors include Maran, Senghor, Césaire, Roumain, Sembene, Glissant, Condé, Warner-Vieyra, Lopes. Reading knowledge of French required. Conducted in English.

AFAM 857b/FILM 781b, BLACKSPACE AND CINEMA. Terry Francis
Wednesdays, 3:30– 5:20 p.m.; Screenings Tue 7:00 p.m.
Critical perspectives on relationship among films, audiences, filmmakers as components of the cinema’s social and aesthetic circuitry. We examine terms such as whiteness, colonial gaze, an Africanist presence, and blackspace through African diaspora and other motion picture networks in order to consider how constructions of visual pleasure around or through spectacles of racialized differences function or are imagined in the cinema.

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