DEPARTMENT OF BLACK STUDIES

Capital and ongoing state violence against Black populations across the Americas have a history in slavery, Native American removal, and the development of western law. This course explores the development of colonial law and indigenous displacement through the lens of colonial attempts to regulate slavery and claim Indigenous territories. Students will read and engage a range of colonial texts to explore the ways that racial slavery served to sketch American capital and law. Students will come away with the ability to critically discuss these developments in their own words, and perhaps think more carefully about the implications of law and state structures etched during the era with regard to racial slavery. Through it, students will come to know the peculiar relationship between slavery, property, capital, race, and Law across the Americas.

Race as a social concept and recurrent cause of differentiation in multiracial societies. Impact of race on social, cultural, economic, and political institutions. Discussion of prejudice, racism, and discrimination.

In-depth examination of a selected author's body of work. Choice of author varies. May be repeated for credit with change of author.

Advanced work on social, cultural, or historical topics. May be repeated for credit with different topic. Prerequisite: advanced student or senior.

This graduate level course charts the development of African American history writings and interpretations from the era of enslavement through the twentieth century. The course has four parts. The first part explores the texts early writers produced to chronicle the contributions of African Americans to the making of America. These first writers were self-taught and wrote not only to document Black achievement but to counter prevailing negative stereotypes in the larger society. The second part focuses on the work of scholars who received formal academic training and produced books that celebrated African Americans as active agents of history.

The range of texts includes essays, monographs, anthologies, journals etc. and other writings of individuals such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, E. Franklin Frazier, John Hope Franklin, Benjamin Quarles and others. The third part focuses on the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Era scholars who spearheaded the development of Black Studies. Foci concern the traditional academic scholarship that challenged conventional interpretations of slavery, Black nationalism, Black institutional and organizational development, and enhanced comprehension of Black expressive culture as fundamental to American culture.

Another critical development in part three was the emergence of survey texts in African American Studies such as Ron Karenga's Introduction to African American Studies. The fourth part examines the major ideological developments in African American Studies as it acquired legitimacy and acceptance within the academy.

The works of Afrocentrists such as Molefi Asante, the challenge of African American women studies scholars that made gender a category of analysis as important as race, and the emergence of African diaspora studies and comparative Black history signaled another important development in African American Studies Historiography.

While the course devotes considerable attention to historical works, it is equally important to concentrate on the writings of literary and cultural studies theorists, as well as those of sociologists and political scientists in order to appreciate the richness and expanse of intellectual engagement and productivity of this vital and dynamic discipline.

The following texts form the basis for a sample representative reading list of works that provide a foundation for the diverse ideological contours and streams of black studies scholarship: W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk; Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro; E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie; John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams; Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity; Sterling Stuckey, Black Nationalism; Ron Karenga, Introduction to African American Studies; Darlene Clark Hine and Jacqueline McLeod, eds., Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora; Dwight A. McBride, Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch; David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas; and Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas; Patricia Hill-Collins, Black Feminist Thought; and Barbara Smith, Homegirls.

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