Undergraduate Course Descriptions

AAAS 2000 Introduction to African and African American Studies

Explores the History of African and African American Studies from its formation, and show why the myth that it is only of benefit to African Americans is incorrect.

AAAS 2410 Black Popular Culture (3)

Explores participation by black peoples in the creation and critique of popular culture through media such as film, music and television and terms of topics such as representation and sexuality.

AAAS 2511 Race Relations (3)

Also offered as SOCL 2511. Examines relations among persons of different racial groups in an interdisciplinary setting that includes sociological, psychological, political, anthropological and historical viewpoints.

AAAS 3024 African Diaspora Intellectual Thought

Survey of critical ideas and theories by select diaspora scholars and writers. Emphasizes the intellectual tensions and deliberations that undergird attempts to theorize and resolve issues involving the status of black people in the world.

AAAS 3024 African Diaspora Intellectual Thought (3)

AAAS 3044 Black Rhetorical Traditions (3) (CxC)

Survey of the development of black communication styles ranging from the sermonic to the academic. Examining the black world’s most effective verbal and written communicators and the tension between orality and literacy.

AAAS 3341 African American English (3)

Also offered as LING 3341. Survey of major issues related to historical and contemporary development of African American speech, focusing on linguistic and social features.

AAAS 3425 Black Women in America (3)

Surveys intersection of race and gender in the U.S. through historical and contemporary lenses, course examines commonalities, differences and struggles that mark black women’s subjectivity

AAAS 3901 Directed Readings and Research in African and African-American Studies

May be taken for a max. of 6 sem. hrs. credit when topics vary. Student must register with a faculty member in the AAAS discipline before registration to select the area of reading or research. Topic must not substitute for regularly offered courses.

AAAS 3901 Directed Readings and Research in African and African-American Studies (1-3)

AAAS Related Courses:

ANTH 4470 Folklore of the African Diaspora

African, Caribbean and African-American cultures from the viewpoint of the diaspora.

ANTH 4050 Black Music in America

Cultural and historical survey of musical genres created and developed by black Americans.

ANTH 4053 African-American Culture

Cultures of African-Americans in the western hemisphere; their origins, development and present distinctiveness.

ENGL 2674 Introduction to African-American Literature (3)

[LCCN: CENL 2403, Introduction to African American Literature] This is a General Education course. Major figures and popular texts of black American literature, including writers of fiction, poetry, drama and essays; influence of genre on the articulation of common political and social themes.

ENGL 3674 Survey of African-American Literature (3)

Literature of the black experience in the U.S. from slave narratives to the present.

ENGL 4173 Studies in Southern Literature (3)

May be taken for a max. of 6 hrs. of credit when topics vary. Authors such as Chopin, Faulkner, Wright, Welty, Tennessee Williams; topics such as “Survey of Southern Literature,” “Civil Rights Literature,” “Historical Fiction,” “Southern Women Writers.”

ENGL 4220 Drama of Africa and African Diaspora (3)

Also offered as THTR 4220. Study of the form and characteristic features as expressed in the works of dramatists in Africa and African Diaspora.

ENGL 4674 Studies in African-American Literature (3)

May be taken for a max. of 6 hrs. of credit when topics vary. Authors such as Douglass, Hurston, Wright, Morrison; topics such as “Slave Narratives,” “The Harlem Renaissance,” “The Black Arts Movement,” “The Black Diaspora,” “African Survivals.”

HIST 2061 African American History

This is a General Education course. Social, cultural and economic role of African Americans in the U.S. from 1619 to the present.

HIST 4055 Civil War

Also offered as MILS 4055. Secession; social and economic conditions, principal military campaigns.

HIST 4067 African American History to 1876

Life and history from 1619 to the end of Reconstruction; African background of African Americans.

HIST 4072 The New South

Political, economic, social and intellectual history of the South since 1877.

MUS 2000 History of Jazz (3)

This is a General Education course. Open to nonmusic majors. Survey of the evolution of jazz and jazz styles.

POLI 4039 Southern Politics (3)

Contemporary politics of the American South.

SOCL 4511 Minority Peoples in the United States (3)

Prereq.: SOCL 2001 or equivalent. Analysis of past and present contributions of ethnic and racial minority groups in the U.S.

WGS 2900 Gender, Race and Nation (3)

This is a General Education course. The constructs of gender and sexuality across diverse racial, ethnic, cultural and class boundaries.