Courses

• CAS AA 103: Introduction to African American Literature
  Examines political, cultural, and historical roots of the African American experience through readings in African American literature.
• CAS AA 207: Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
  Social definition of race and ethnicity. The adjustment of different ethnic groups and their impact upon U.S. social life. How prejudice and discrimination create class identities and how caste relations have affected patterns of integration during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Also offered as CAS SO 207.
• CAS AA 304: Introduction to African American Women Writers
  Surveys the writings of African American women writers from slavery to the present and explores the African American female literary tradition in the context of black history and culture. Topic for Fall 2011: Toni Morrison's American Times. Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison is one of America's most important authors. This course examines four of her novels, using primary and secondary materials to construct historical contexts and critical perspectives. Also offered as CAS EN 370.
• CAS AA 310: History of the Civil Rights Movement
  History of the African American struggle for racial equality and democracy from the turn of the century through the 1960s. Use is made of the most recent scholarship, memoirs, documentary films, and oral history accounts. Also offered as CAS HI 378.
• CAS AA 316: African Diaspora Arts in the Americas
  Study of the transmission of African artistry in the Caribbean, South America, and the United States from the period of slavery to the present. Topics include Kongo and Yoruba arts and their influence on the arts of Santería, Vodun, and carnival. Also offered as CAS AH 316.
• CAS AA 355: Science, Race, and Society
  Explores social, cultural, and political debates surrounding scientific authority. Focuses on how racial differences come to be understood as "natural" and how scientific practice and social orders impact one another. Also considers how gender, class, and nationality have shaped scientific understandings of racialized bodies and populations. Also offered as CAS SO 355.
• CAS AA 363: Race and the Development of the American Economy: A Global Perspective
  Surveys the economic history of African Americans within the context of the development of the American and global economies. Topics include the economics of slavery; race and industrialization; the Great Migration; anti-discrimination legislation; and the historical origins of contemporary racial inequalities. Also offered as CAS EC 363.
• CAS AA 371: African American History
  The history of African Americans from African origins to present time; consideration of slavery, reconstruction, and ethnic relations from the colonial era to our own time. Also offered as CAS HI 298.
• CAS AA 380: Blacks in Modern Europe
  Readings from recent scholarly books on Blacks in Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, as well as related primary materials revealing the evolving image of Blacks in European history, folklore, religion, art, and literature. Also offered as CAS HI 360.
• CAS AA 382: History of Religion in Pre-Colonial Africa
  The study of the development of religious traditions in Africa during the period prior to European colonialism. An emphasis on both indigenous religions and the growth and spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the continent as a whole. Also offered as CAS HI 349 and CAS RN 382.
• CAS AA 385: Atlantic History
  Examines the various interactions that shaped the Atlantic World, connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas between 1400 and 1800. Begins by defining the political interaction, then emphasizes cultural exchange, religious conversion, and the revolutionary era. Also offered as CAS HI 350.
• CAS AA 388: Black Radical Thought
  Black radical thought in America, Europe, and Africa since the eighteenth century through writings of abolitionists, leaders of revolutions and liberation movements, Black nationalists, and Black socialists. Emphasizes the global nature of the "Black World" and its role in world history. Also offered as CAS HI 361.
• CAS AA 395: Power, Leadership, and Governance in Africa and the Caribbean
  Haitian Revolution; British Caribbean, leadership, governance, and power in Africa during the period of legitimate trade; visionaries, dictators, and nationalist politics in the Caribbean; chiefs, western elites, and nationalism in colonial Africa; road to governance in post-colonial Caribbean and Africa. Also offered as CAS HI 352 and IR 394.
• CAS AA 396: State and Commerce in Atlantic Africa, 1450-1850
  Examines--both by region and across the larger Atlantic area--the ways that overseas commerce, in particular the slave trade, interacted with and was shaped by African politics and economic variables. Also offered as CAS HI 353.
• CAS AA 408: Seminar: Ethnic, Race, and Minority Relations
  Formation and position of ethnic minorities in the United States, including cross-group comparisons from England, Africa, and other parts of the world. Readings and field experience. Also offered as CAS SO 408.
• CAS AA 489: The African Diaspora in the Americas
  Topic for Spring 2010: African American History in Global and Comparative Perspective. African American history in an international framework. Examines development of racial categories in early transatlantic trade, Black participation in armed conflict, diverse Black communities in the twentieth century. Also offered as CAS HI 489.
• CAS AA 491: Directed Study in African American Studies
  
• CAS AA 492: Directed Study in African American Studies
  
• CAS AA 502: Topics in African American Literature
  Topic for Spring 2011: Twentieth-Century African American Novel. Major works from the Harlem Renaissance, Realism, Modernism, the Black Arts Movement, and the contemporary period. Authors include Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Wallace Thurman, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, John Wideman, and Toni Morrison. Also offered as CAS EN 380.
• CAS AA 504: African American and Asian American Women Writers
  Cross-cultural comparison of African American and Asian American women writers. Explores and evaluates the cultural impact of their work, and looks at how these two groups bound together by "otherness" pursue the theme of conflicting cultures. Also offered as CAS EN 371.

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