Search Results
Your search for courses · during 2023-24 · tagged with AFST Humanistic Inquiry · returned 14 results
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AMST 225 Beauty and Race in America 6 credits
In this class we consider the construction of American beauty historically, examining the way whiteness intersects with beauty to produce a dominant model that marginalizes women of color. We study how communities of color follow, refuse, or revise these beauty ideals through literature. We explore events like the beauty pageant, material culture such as cosmetics, places like the beauty salon, and body work like cosmetic surgery to understand how beauty is produced and negotiated.
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AMST 225.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Adriana Estill 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 127 Early Africa in the Global Context 6 credits
Africa is woefully misunderstood and stereotyped as inherently violent, poor, grossly corrupt, and uncivilized. In response to these misconceptions and misrepresentations, this survey studies the diverse communities and states which existed across Africa and were part of global networks before the nineteenth century. Broadly, it explores the roots of the global hierarchies of power which perpetuate this positioning of Africa as inferior to the West. We will analyze the representations of Africa and its histories and an understanding of how these representations shape our conscious and unconscious opinions about and perceptions of the continent, its people, and their cultures.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 127.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 304 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 304 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 180 Modern Africa, 1800-Present 6 credits
This course is a general survey of modern sub-Saharan African history from the 19th century to today through primary and secondary sources and works of fiction. The course will challenge recurring colonial stereotypes of modern Africa and its peoples as inherently chaotic, unchanging, poor, diseased, corrupt and conflict-ridden. It starts with an overview of the cultural developments in Africa before 1800, including African slave systems and the Atlantic Slave Trade. It then turns to European conquest of Africa and the dynamics of colonial rule, following which we explore how the rising tide of African nationalism, in the form of liberation movements, ushered out colonialism. Finally, we examine the problems of independent African nations as they grapple with neo-colonialism, China’s presence in Africa and a changing global epidemiology in the face of HIV/AIDS and the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 180.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 402 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 402 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 218 Black Women’s History 6 credits
This course focuses on the history of black women in the United States. The class will offer an overview of the lived experiences of women of African descent in this country from enslavement to the present. We will focus on themes of labor, reproduction, health, community, family, resistance, activism, etc., highlighting the diversity of black women’s experiences and the ways in which their lives have been shaped by the intersections of their race, gender, sexuality, and class.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 218.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Rebecca Brueckmann 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 330 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 220 From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Black History and/in Film 6 credits
This course focuses on the representation of African American history in popular US-American movies. It will introduce students to the field of visual history, using cinema as a primary source. Through films from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the seminar will analyze African American history, (pop-)cultural depictions, and memory culture. We will discuss subjects, narrative arcs, stylistic choices, production design, performative and film industry practices, and historical receptions of movies. The topics include slavery, racial segregation and white supremacy, the Black Freedom Movement, controversies and conflicts in Black communities, Black LGBTQIA+ history, ghettoization and police brutality, Black feminism, and Afrofuturism.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 220.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Rebecca Brueckmann 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 224 Disease, Health, and Healing in African History 6 credits
This interdisciplinary survey is structured around case studies of epidemics and pandemics from pre-colonial times to the present. It explores the history of disease, health, and healing in the context of changing economic, cultural, and political relations in Africa beginning in the 1800s. Broadly, this course addresses the bigger question of the coalescence of power, agency, race, gender, and environment around health and disease to today. We will also learn about the variety of interventions made by biomedicine in African history to provide students with perspectives on Africa’s place in the history of global health.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 224.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 330 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 282 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: African Diaspora in Arabia 6 credits
This course offers a broad historical overview of African men’s and women’s experiences as religious, political, and military leaders, as merchants and poets, and in agricultural and maritime industries in Arabia. Situated in Zanzibar and in various Gulf societies, the course will examine long standing historical, cultural, and commercial exchanges between Africa and the Gulf from medieval times to the present day. The course will question the ideologies that assume that Africa and Arabia represent racial and cultural difference.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies Quantitative Reasoning Encounter Writing Requirement
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100 or 200 level Africana Studies or History course and participation in OCS program
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HIST 282.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
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HIST 283 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: Thinking Historically in the Present 2 credits
This course explores how people in the countries associated with the Africa-Arabia program use notions of the past, heritage, and culture to forge national identities. It involves foundational reading material based on available field trips and experts. Students also will be tested on knowledge that they amass from a range of sources by the end of the first week of the term. These sources include lectures, museums, and local archives. Students will demonstrate this knowledge during presentations before an audience of their peers and scholars, heritage practitioners, and staff from institutional partners.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies Writing Requirement
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Participation in OCS Program
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HIST 283.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- Grading:S/CR/NC
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HIST 284 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: Heritage in Africa and Arabia 4 credits
Through lectures, readings, and visits to museums and archaeological and other heritage sites, this course examines the rich cultural heritage of East Africa and Arabia. Students will investigate a range of sites, reflecting on the deep and enduring connections between Africa’s and Arabia’s historical trading systems and cultures. The course also examines the influence of various European powers.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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100 or 200 level Africana Studies or History course and participation in OCS program
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HIST 284.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
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HIST 285 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: Critical Historical Research 6 credits
This course focuses on ethnographic research and writing with an emphasis on the practice of fieldwork. Students will conduct group research projects that include actively guiding and evaluating the work of their peers. The content of these projects will include maritime activities, health, music, economics, and heritage. Students will learn the benefits and challenges of examining oral tradition, oral history, poetry, visual art, material culture, and embodied practice. Service or experiential learning is another major point of emphasis. Students will develop their ability to question their knowledge, method, evidence, interpretation, experience, ethics, and power.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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100 or 200 level Africana Studies or History course and participation in OCS program
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HIST 285.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
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PHIL 260 Philosophy of Race 6 credits
What is race? How do we define racism? How have philosophers defined race historically? What does it mean to examine race philosophically? US history, culture, and politics are haunted by the specters of race, racism, and slavery. Ideas about race and racism permeate nearly all aspects our lives evidenced by the mainstream media’s obsession with questions like: Does racism still exist? Should critical race theory be taught in schools? Do “Black Lives” or “All Lives” matter? In this course, we will investigate the ways in which ideas about race and racism in the US have been and are continuously re-defined for the sake of preserving white supremacy and white-supremacist institutions.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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PHIL 260.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Cynthia Marrero-Ramos 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 202 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 212 Black Religious Thought 6 credits
Although Black thinkers are well-known for discussing religion, the relationship between Blackness and religious thought is ambiguous. Much like religion can be understood in numerous ways, so does “Black” carry several meanings. In this course, we will investigate this ambiguity by unpacking how Black thinkers have expanded upon, reimagined, and rejected various forms of religious practices, beliefs, and institutions. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which these engagements are shaped by thinkers’ identification with, definition of, and politics surrounding Blackness and the African diaspora. The syllabus may include Baldwin, Hurston, Malcolm X, and Cone.
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RELG 212.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 304 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 236 Black Love: Religious, Political, and Cultural Discussions 6 credits
In 2021, the passing of Black feminist bell hooks led the scholarly journal Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ) to publish a special issue on Black love: hooks’ expertise. As is often the case in discussions of Blackness and love, the issue included many allusions to the divine and suggested some ties between race, love, and religion. Drawing inspiration from WSQ, this class will investigate the role religion, spirituality, and belief play in conversations about Blackness, love, and their intersection. The syllabus will include an array of academic essays, personal reflections, and creative works, including those by Lorde, Hartman, and Wonder.
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RELG 236.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 303 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 303 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 267 Black Testimony: Art, Literature, Philosophy 6 credits
Throughout Black history, testimony–a discourse in which an individual uses personal stories to convey ideas of broader meaning–has played an essential role in Black religion, politics, and daily life. In this course, we will identify the significance, history, and particularities of Black people’s testimonies, and outline their presence and potential today. Remaining mindful of testimony’s religious dimensions will include particular attention to the role of religion and spirituality in the assigned materials. The syllabus may include testimonial art by Romare Bearden and Kenrick Lamar, writings by Angela Davis and Frederick Douglass, and films by Barry Jenkins.
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RELG 267.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 202 1:10pm-2:10pm
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