Course Listings
The Africana Studies major offers an interdisciplinary, comparative approach to the study of the history, politics, cultures, literatures, and experiences of peoples in Africa and the African Diaspora. Through this course of study, students come to see the centrality of Africa and the black Diaspora in the modern world and develop a critical understanding of the political, social and ideological forces that shape their place in the world. Our introductory courses encourage students to understand the world from multidisciplinary and transnational perspectives, to critically engage with primary and secondary materials, to develop key geographical knowledge and to engage in comparative analysis. In consultation with their Africana advisor, majors determine a course of study that draws from a range of disciplinary and/or theoretical perspectives. This coursework includes a required colloquium which grounds students in key theories and methodologies of the black Diaspora, a Harlem course that asks students to think about our historic location in relation to the larger Diaspora and a senior seminar that requires students to conduct groundbreaking research.
This multidisciplinary training not only involves a questioning of disciplinary boundaries, but also provides students with the intellectual tools necessary to think critically about the production and dissemination of knowledge. Our home in a premier college for women means that Africana Studies majors at Barnard develop a particular understanding of how gender and sexuality, as well as race, class, religion and region interact with and transform each other in individual and group experiences.
AFRS BC2004 Introduction to African Studies. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Interdisciplinary and thematic approach to the study of Africa, moving from pre-colonial through colonial and post-colonial periods to contemporary Africa. Focus will be on its history, societal relations, politics and the arts. The objective is to provide a critical survey of the history as well as the continuing debates in African Studies.
Fall 2019: AFRS BC2004
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AFRS 2004001/06762M W 11:40am - 12:55pm
Room TBAAbosede George316
AFRS BC2005 Caribbean Culture and Societies. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Multidisciplinary exploration of the Anglophone, Hispanic, and Francophone Caribbean. Discusses theories about the development and character of Caribbean societies; profiles representative islands; and explores enduring and contemporary issues in Caribbean Studies (race, color and class; politics and governance; political economy; the struggles for liberation; cultural identity and migration.) BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
AFRS BC2006 Introduction to the African Diaspora. 3 points.
Interdisciplinary and thematic approach to the African diaspora in the Americas: its motivations, dimensions, consequences, and the importance and stakes of its study. Beginning with the contacts between Africans and the Portuguese in the 15th century, this class will open up diverse paths of inquiry as students attempt to answer questions, clear up misconceptions, and challenge assumptions about the presence of Africans in the 'New World.'
Spring 2019: AFRS BC2006
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AFRS 2006001/07625T 2:10pm - 4:00pm
805 Altschul HallYvette Christianse314/18
AFRS BC2010 Colonialism in Africa. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
This course will prepare students to examine diplomatic interactions involving African and European polities during the eighteenth and nineteenth century and the role that military force played in helping European nations secure access to territory and control of resources on the African continent. Students will also examine the vast array of forensic evidence (the broad range of ritual compacts and treaties, the forms of proof and the legal debates) that European merchants and political representatives used to secure entitlements to land and resources.
AFRS BC2510 Food, Ethnicity & Globalization. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Ethics and Values.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: None
Corequisites: None
When people produce, consume or refuse food, choices that often seem "natural," unthinking and highly personal are in fact daily acts of identity and belonging that place individuals in the global circulation of goods, people and resources. This course examines representations of food and foodways as a way of understanding the politics of representation and the complex interplay of race, ethnicity and gender. The course's units on Ethnicity, Migration and Identity; Food & Globalization; Food and Power; and the Politics of Pork, will allow students to understand foodways as key expressions or embodiments of cultural affiliations and food choices as linked to questions of morality and values.
AFRS BC3001 Politics of Gender in Contemporary South Africa. 1.5 point.
This course will only take place from September 23rd through October 9th.
This module is designed to offer mid-senior level students with an interest in African Studies an intensive engagement with the politics of gender and sexualities in specific African contexts of the c21. Although the module will include discussion of aspects of the sexual and gendered operations of colonial praxis, the concentration will be on the ways in which post-flag democracy cultures have taken up the question of gender and sexualities. We will explore debates on the representation and realities of lesbian and transgendered experiences, the meaning of race-based identity-politics within “new” democracies, the narratives of “the body” as they emerge through medical and religious discourses on “women,” and discourses of “e-masculinization” and militarism. Note that this course will only run from September 16th through September 30th.
AFRS BC3020 Harlem Crossroads. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Studies Harlem in the context of African-American and African diaspora culture and society as well as American urbanization. Primarily focusing on Harlem of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the course offers students opportunities to discuss political economy, immigration, migration and the role of the city in social life.
AFRS BC3055 Slave Resistance in the United States from the Colonial Era to the Civil War. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Analyzes the multifaceted nature of slave resistance, its portrayal and theorization by scholars. Critically examines the various pathways of resistance of enslaved Africans and African-Americans, both individually and collectively (e.g., running away, non-cooperation, theft, arson, as well as verbal and physical confrontation, revolts and insurrections). Considers how gender shaped acts of resistance.
AFRS BC3065 Writing Diasporic Cities. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Ethics and Values.
This course considers representation of four cities in which diasporic communities have settled and negotiated the psychic and material terrain that stretches from a past homeland to a settled homeland. We look at New York, London, Kinshasha, and Cape Town where communities of different African diasporas- historical and contemporary- as well as South Asian diasporas have settled. Locally, we enter a space like the contemporary Malcolm Shabazz market to attend to the transnational, mercantilist as well as cultural public spheres that it creates. We also look at earlier transmigrations by African Diasporic groups moving from Jamaica to Harlem to Marseilles. We consider London in the 1980s and the early 2000s. Thematically, we consider different kinds of displacement and their impact upon women. We foreground race, ethnicity, nationalist discourses, global economies, and the publishing, distribution and marketing networks of the Arts produced in these cities. We read across genres and consider graffiti in neighborhoods that have diasporic communities.
AFRS BC3100 Medicine and Power in African History. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC I).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Examines medical discourse and practice in Africa, emphasizing relationships between power and medical knowledge. Topics include: medicine and empire, tropical medicine, colonial public health and social control, labor, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS.
AFRS BC3110 The Africana Colloquium: Caribbean Women. 4 points.
Prerequisites: Students must attend first day of class and admission will be decided then. Enrollment limited to 18 students. Priority will be given to Africana majors and CCIS students (Africana Studies, American Studies and Women's Studies majors; minors in Race and Ethnic Studies).
Spring 2019: AFRS BC3110
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AFRS 3110001/05430W 2:10pm - 4:00pm
502 Diana CenterCelia Naylor47/15
Fall 2019: AFRS BC3110
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AFRS 3110001/06754T 12:00pm - 1:50pm
Room TBAKim F Hall48/18
AFRS BC3120 History of African-American Music. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Survey interrogates the cultural and aesthetic development of a variety of interconnected musical genres - such as blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk, R&B, hip-hop, classical and their ever changing same/names - viewed as complex human activities daringly danced at dangerous discourses inside and outside the American cultural mainstreams.
AFRS BC3121 Black Women in America. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Prerequisites: Students must attend first day of class and admission will be decided then. Priority will be given to CCIS students (Africana Studies, American Studies and Women's Studies majors; minors in Race and Ethnic Studies). Enrollment limited to 20 students.
Examines the roles of black women in the U.S. as thinkers, activists and creators during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Focusing on the intellectual work, social activism and cultural expression of African American women, we examine how they understood their lives, resisted oppression and struggled to change society. We will also discuss theoretical frameworks (such as "double jeopardy," or "intersectionality") developed for the study of black women. The seminar will encourage students to pay particular attention to the diversity of black women and critical issues facing Black women today. This course is the same as WMST BC3121.
AFRS BC3134 Unheard Voices: African Women's Literature. 4 points.
How does one talk of women in Africa without thinking of Africa as a 'mythic unity'? We will consider the political, racial, social and other contexts in which African women write and are written about in the context of their located lives in Africa and in the African Diaspora.
AFRS BC3146 African American and African Writing and the Screen. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Focuses on the context and history of representations of African Americans and Africans in early American and other cinematographies; the simultaneous development of early film and the New Negro, Negritude and Pan African movements; and pioneer African American and African cinema.
AFRS BC3148 Literature of the Great Migration. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
(Also ENGL BC 3148) Examination of fiction, poetry, essays and films about the Great Migration (1910-1950) of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North, focusing on literary production in New York and Chicago. (This course satisfies the Harlem Requirement for the Africana Studies major).
AFRS BC3150 Race and Performance In The Caribbean. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Sophomore Standing. Enrollment limited to 18 students.
Analysis of the shifting place and perception of Afro-Caribbean performance in Caribbean societies. This course takes a cross-cultural approach that examines performance through the lens of ethnography, anthropology, music and literary criticism.
AFRS BC3517 African American Women and Music. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: None
Corequisites: None
Examines the music making practices of African-American women in blues, gospel, jazz, and rock at different periods in the 20th century. Considers the content and context of these musical productions as well as artist biographies in order to understand the significance of music for these producers and their audiences.
AFEN BC3525 Atlantic Crossings: The West Indies and the Atlantic World. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 20 students.
This course examines the literature of transatlantic travel from Columbus's first voyage in 1492 to Caryl Phillips’s re-tracing of his mother's migration in The Atlantic Sound (2000) to recent re-imaginings of slavery and the Middle Passage by M. Nourbese Philip and Marlon James. Even before Columbus's first encounter, the "Indies" sparked English desires for riches and adventure. We will first investigate how English writers promoted an idea of the West Indies and then came to inhabit its heterogeneous spaces, filling them with longing and anxiety. The class will chart the emergence of modern race thinking from the rich interaction of peoples and goods in the early modern Caribbean. We will also question how ideals of freedom and "English-ness" co-existed with slavery, bondage and creole life. The class will then look at the ways later writers revisit the Caribbean's colonial origins and discuss how notions of the West Indies may haunt modern Atlantic travel.
AFRS BC3528 Harlem on My Mind: The Political Economy of Harlem. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Drawing on social histories, primary sources, fiction, and popular culture this course will explore the postwar history of Harlem. We will place Harlem in the broader context of New York City and explore how domestic and transnational migration patterns have shaped its history. Specific topics include: urbanization, migration and settlement patterns; racial liberalism and political incorporation; critical engagement with East Harlem as research cite for "culture of poverty" theorists; state criminalization of youth; underground, illegal and illicit economy from the 1960s to the 1990s; struggles over property and gentrification; and perhaps most importantly, exploring Harlem as cultural and political center of the Black World throughout the twentieth century.
AFRS BC3550 Harlem Seminar: Gay Harlem. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC I)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC II).
Prerequisites: This course is limited to 20 students and by permission only.
This course explores Harlem's role in the production of sexual modernity and in particular as a space of queer encounter. While much of our investigation will be devoted to the intersection of race and sexuality in African American life, we also consider Harlem's history as a communal space for Italian, Puerto Rican, and more recent immigrants. Students will be encouraged to distinguish and connect contemporary sites of sexual culture in Harlem to the historical articulations of race and sexuality examined in the course.
AFRS BC3556 Ethnography of Black America. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
This course critically examines ethnographic texts about Blacks in the United States, focusing as much on what they proffer about Black American culture as on the various socio-political contexts in which this body of scholarship has been produced. The goal is to advance an understanding of the larger social forces undergirding the production not only of formations of Black culture, but also of knowledge about Black America. A further goal is to foster a critical understanding of the anthropological enterprise itself.
AFRS BC3560 Human Rights and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Reason and Value (REA)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Ethics and Values.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Examines the evolution of the ideas, institutions and practices associated with social justice in Africa and their relationship to contemporary international human rights movement and focuses on the role of human rights in social change. A number of themes will re-occur throughout the course, notably tensions between norms and reality, cultural diversity, economic and political asymmetries, the role of external actors, and women as rights providers. Countries of special interest include Liberia, Senegal, South African and Tanzania.
AFRS BC3563 Translating Hispaniola. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Students will look at the extent to which the nation-language border separating Haiti and the Dominican Republic represents the legacy of a colonial history whose influence in many ways undermines regional community in the Caribbean to the present day. Beginning with Christopher Columbus’ fraught “discovery” of Hispaniola and ending with the 2010 earthquake and its aftermath, the course explores social, political, and cultural phenomena common to both nations – among which, slavery and freedom, Euro-North American imperialist intervention, and diaspora and migration – as these issues manifest in primary and secondary works of creative fiction, history, anthropology, and political theory. From oral histories to newspaper articles to short fiction by Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat, this course traces the history of a divided Caribbean family. Students will engage with recently created digital humanities resources concerning Haiti and the Dominican Republic and also develop interactive, web-based tools that allow for a more nuanced and expansive understanding of Hispaniola’s transnational past, present, and futures. Please note that there is no language requirement for this course.
AFRS BC3570 Africana Issues: Diasporas of the Indian Ocean. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
The Indian Ocean has been called the cradle of globalization, a claim bolstered by seasonal monsoon winds and the trade that these enabled. We will consider the aesthetic histories of such trade by engaging literary and other cultural exchanges (including film, visual arts, music, and dance). What did the Zulu prophet Isaiah Shembe learn from Gujarati poets? Other than a major slaving center and source of spices, what role did Zanzibar play in the development of music and literary forms that look to Oman as well as the East Coast of Africa? We focus on four sites: Durban (South Africa), Bombay (India), Zanzibar (Tanzania) and Port Louis (Mauritius). This course will be taught simultaneously between Barnard in New York and the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Students from both campuses will be encouraged to interact electronically and to establish a blog and website. The course will also have live-streamed guest speakers from chosen sites around the Indian Ocean.
AFRS BC3585 Poor in America: The Experience and Impact of Financial Deprivation. 3 points.
This course focuses on the life experiences and impact of poverty in the contemporary United States. We will be exploring the consequences of financial and material deprivation on work, housing, health, parenting, children, as well as the limits and opportunities for inter-generational mobility and how each of these intersect with gender, racial and ethnic identities. We will be learning about the experiences of individual persons as well as how these particular experiences reflect the overarching patterns of social, political and economic trends in the United States. The course will incorporate a diverse set of disciplinary perspectives to shed light on the challenges faced by persons living in poverty. In addition, there will be an emphasis on learning about and critically assessing methodological approaches applied in the literature. No prior knowledge of methods is required and any technical references will be explained in class.
AFRS BC3589 Black Feminism(s)/Womanism(s). 4 points.
Black Feminism(s)/Womanism(s)
Spring 2019: AFRS BC3589
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AFRS 3589001/00343T 4:10pm - 6:00pm
405 Barnard HallCelia Naylor418/18
AFRS BC3590 The Middle Passage. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Admission to this seminar is by application only. Applications will be made available on the Africana Studies website: www.barnard.edu/africana
In addition to learning about the history of the Middle Passage, students will examine literary and political responses to this forced immigration out of Africa. Identifying responses to slave holding pasts, the seminar culminates in a visit to an historic site of importance in the Middle Passage.
AFRS BC3998 Senior Seminar. 4 points.
A program of interdisciplinary research leading to the writing of the senior essay. All Africana majors must complete the one-semester Africana Studies Senior Seminar in the fall and submit a senior essay as one of the requirements for this course. A student who has successfully completed the Africana Studies Senior Seminar, has demonstrated the ability to complete a senior thesis, and has obtained approval from the faculty member teaching the Senior Seminar may take an Independent Study with a Barnard or Columbia faculty member or a second thesis seminar in another department in order to complete a senior thesis in Africana Studies in the spring semester.
Fall 2019: AFRS BC3998
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AFRS 3998001/06757T 10:10am - 12:00pm
Room TBAColin Leach43/15
AFEN BC3815 The Worlds of Ntozake Shange and Digital Storytelling. 4 points.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 12 students. Permission of the instructor required. Interested students should complete the application at http://bit.ly/Ntozake2019. Students should have taken a course beyond the intro level from ONE of the following areas: American Literature (through the English Department), Africana Studies, American Studies, Theatre or Women's Studies. Students who successfully complete into this course will be eligible to take the second half of the course in Spring 2019. NOTE: There will be three extra sessions scheduled in the Digital Humanities Center.
A poet, performance artist, playwright and novelist, Ntozake Shange's stylistic innovations in drama, poetry and fiction and attention to the untold lives of black women have made her an influential figure throughout American arts and in Feminist history. This semester will examine Shange's works in the context of political and artistic organizing by women of color in the 1970s and 80s. In addition to our analysis of primary texts, students will be introduced to archival research in Ntozake Shange’s personal archive at Barnard College. This in-depth exploration of Shange's work and milieu is complemented with an introduction to digital tools, public research and archival practice. You can find more information and apply for the course at http://bit.ly/Ntozake2019. On Twitter @ShangeWorlds.
Fall 2019: AFEN BC3815
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AFEN 3815001/06751Th 12:10pm - 2:00pm
Room TBAKim F Hall40/12
AFEN BC3816 The Worlds of Ntozake Shange and Digital Storytelling. 4 points.
Prerequisites: AFEN BC3815 or equivalent.
This hands-on, project based course introduces students to the use of digital tools and sources to organize and manage their archival research, interpret their findings and communicate their results to the public. This semester, the course is somewhat different than the usual research course in that, rather than simply going more deeply into the course focus, you will be asked to apply your knowledge to make new things. With support of a Mellon "Barnard Teaches" grant we will continue to work with our archival partners and with experts at the International Center for Photography (ICP) to help you develop projects that teach some aspect of Shange's work and/or The Black Arts Movement to a larger audience. But while making these new things, we will have ongoing discussions about the nature of and evolving protocols for digital scholarship. You should be making plans to visit the archive appropriate to your project (in most cases this will be the Schomburg or the Barnard archives, but they might include sites such as The Billy Rose Theatre Division at the NYPL or the Amiri Baraka collection at Columbia University) as well as doing background reading for your project. Unlike last semester's blogging, which focused on developing an interdisciplinary reading practice, this semester you will blog about your research. Every week you should be blogging about your reading or your research: every two weeks your blogpost will be an "archive find of the week" post that highlights an interesting image, document or object discovered in your chosen archive (see assignments sheet for details). You might find it more pleasant (and better for our short-staffed archives) to visit the archive or ICP in small groups. To attain the technical skills necessary to make things, you may sometimes be asked to inform and educate yourself outside of class, using extracurricular resources. Be prepared for some DIY moments throughout the semester. By the end of the semester, you'll have sharpened your research skills while also acquiring digital, teamwork, and project management skills that will be useful in other classes and beyond.
Cross-Listed Courses
American Studies
AMST UN3930 Topics in American Studies. 4 points.
Please refer to the Center for American Studies for the course descriptions for each section.
Fall 2019: AMST UN3930
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
AMST 3930001/62741T 2:10pm - 4:00pm
317 Hamilton HallRoosevelt Montas40/18
AMST 3930002/62736Th 2:10pm - 4:00pm
317 Hamilton HallHilary-Anne Hallett413/18
AMST 3930003/62739M 10:10am - 12:00pm
317 Hamilton HallJessica Lee40/18
AMST 3930004/62737M 6:10pm - 8:00pm
317 Hamilton HallBenjamin Rosenberg40/18
AMST 3930005/62738W 4:10pm - 6:00pm
317 Hamilton HallValerie Paley40/18
AMST 3930006/62740T 10:10am - 12:00pm
317 Hamilton HallRoosevelt Montas40/18
AMST 3930007/10469Th 12:10pm - 2:00pm
317 Hamilton HallJeremy Dauber411/18
AMST 3930008/10176Th 4:10pm - 6:00pm
401 Hamilton HallRobert Pollack, Craig Blinderman, Brigid Connelly413/18
AMST 3930009/10582W 12:10pm - 2:00pm
Room TBALuke Mayville42/18
Anthropology (Barnard)
ANTH UN1002 The Interpretation of Culture. 3 points.
The anthropological approach to the study of culture and human society. Case studies from ethnography are used in exploring the universality of cultural categories (social organization, economy, law, belief system, art, etc.) and the range of variation among human societies.
Spring 2019: ANTH UN1002
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
ANTH 1002001/24622T Th 11:40am - 12:55pm
Room TBAVanessa Agard-Jones384/120
Fall 2019: ANTH UN1002
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
ANTH 1002001/45160T Th 1:10pm - 2:25pm
Room TBAAudra Simpson3106/120
ANTH V3660 Gender, Culture, and Human Rights. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
ANTH V3943 Youth and Identity Politics in Africa. 4 points.
Enrollment limited to 15.Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor is required.
Examines ways in which African youth inevitably occupy two extremes in academic writings and the mass media: as victims of violence, or as instigators of social chaos. Considers youth as generating new cultural forms, as historically relevant actors, and informed social and/or political critics. At the core of such critiques lie possibilities for the agentive power of youth in Africa.
ANTH V3983 Ideas and Society in the Caribbean. 4 points.
Enrollment limited to 20.Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Focusing on the Anglo-Creole Caribbean, this course examines some aspects of popular culture, literary expression, political change, and intellectual movements over the past thirty years.
MDES W2030 Major Debates in the Study of Africa. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL)., CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement, Recitation Section Required
This course will focus on key debates that have shaped the study of Africa in the post-colonial African academy. We will cover seven key debates: (1) Historiography; (2) Slavery and slave trades; (3) State Formation; (4) Colonialism; (5) Underdevelopment; (6) Nationalism and the anti-colonial struggle; (7) Political Identity and political violence in the post-colony. Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement.
Art History (Barnard)
Comparative Literature (Barnard)
CLRS W4190 Race, Ethnicity, and Narrative, in the Russian/Soviet Empire. 3 points.
CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
This course examines the literary construction of ethnic and cultural identity in texts drawn from the literatures of ethnic minorities and non-Slavic nationalities that coexist within the Russian and Soviet imperial space, with attention to the historical and political context in which literary discourses surrounding racial, ethnic, and cultural particularity develop. Organized around three major regions -- the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Russian Far East --readings include canonical "classics" by Aitmatov, Iskander, and Rytkheu as well as less-known texts, both "official" and censored.
Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
CSER W1012 History of Racialization in the United States. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
The History of Racialization in the United States examines the development of race and racism through the study of significant historical circumstances that define the institutional structure of American Empire and of the resulting interactions among its peoples. Race is not static. Consequently, it is not an ahistorical object, nor a predetermined identity, nor a uniform category of analysis. Traditionally, the history of American race relations is the contact between racially defined groups over time and space of the effort required to maintain social and economic differences among them. Racialization, then, refers to the process by which one population group or many are "placed" in distinct racial categories.
Dance (Barnard)
DNCE BC2580 Tap as an American Art Form. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
Prerequisites: DNCE BC1446 or equivalent experience.
Studio/lecture format focuses on tap technique, repertory, improvisation, and the development of tap explored through American history, jazz music, films, videos, and biographies.
DNCE BC3570 Latin American and Caribbean Dance: Identities in Motion. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Examines the history and choreographic features of Latin American and Caribbean dance forms. Dances are analyzed in order to uncover the ways in which dancing shapes national, racial, and gender identities. Focuses on the globalization of these dances in New York City.
DNCE BC3578 Traditions of African-American Dance. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Traces the development of African-American dance, emphasizing the contribution of black artists and the influence of black traditions on American theatrical dance. Major themes include the emergence of African-American concert dance, the transfer of vernacular forms to the concert stage, and issues of appropriation, cultural self-identification, and artistic hybridity.
DNCE BC3980 Performing the Political: Embodying Change in American Performance. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: An introductory course in dance or theatre history or permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 12 students.
Exploration into the politics of performance and the performance of politics through the lens of 20th-century American dance.
Economics
ECON W4438 Economics of Race in the U.S.. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: ECON W3211 and ECON W3213. ECON W4400 is strongly recommended.
What differences does race make in the U.S. economy? Why does it make these differences? Are these differences things we should be concerned about? If so, what should be done? The course examines labor markets, housing markets, capital markets, crime, education, and the links among these markets. Both empirical and theoretical contributions are studied.
English & Comparative Literature
English (Barnard)
ENGL BC3129 Explorations of Black Literature: Early African-American Lit. 1760-1890. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 18 students.
Poetry, prose, fiction, and nonfiction, with special attention to the slave narrative. Includes Wheatley, Douglass, and Jacobs, but emphasis will be on less familiar writers such as Brown, Harper, Walker, Wilson, and Forten. Works by some 18th-century precursors will also be considered.
Fall 2019: ENGL BC3129
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
ENGL 3129001/08079
Quandra Prettyman318/18
ENTH BC3144 Black Theatre. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 16 students.
Exploration of Black Theater, specifically African-American performance traditions, as an intervening agent in racial, cultural, and national identity. African-American theatre artists to be examined include Amiri Baraka, Kia Corthron, W.E.B. Du Bois, Angelina Grimke, Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan-Lori Parks, Adrian Piper, and August Wilson. Fulfills one (of two) required courses in dramatic literature for Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts major.
ENGL BC3190 Global Literature in English. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Selective survey of fiction from the ex-colonies, focusing on the colonial encounter, cultural and political decolonization, and belonging and migration in the age of postcolonial imperialism. Areas covered include Africa (Achebe, Aidoo, Armah, Ngugi); the Arab World (Mahfouz, Munif, Salih, Souief); South Asia (Mistry, Rushdie, Suleri); the Carribean (Kincaid); and New Zealand (Hulme).
ENGL BC3194 Critical and Theoretical Perspectives on Literature: Marxist Literary Theory. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Evolution of Marxist criticism from Marx to Jameson and Eagleton. Central questions: What is unique about Marxist cultural analysis? What are the different Marxist schools of criticism? Is there a future for Marxism? Issues considered: capitalism and culture, class analysis, commitment, modernism and postmodernism, commodification and alienation, and postcolonialism.
ENGL BC3196 Home to Harlem: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance. 4 points.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 20 students.
In the spring of 2016, ENGL 3196y will be centered on the relationship between art, activism and social justice as this relationship was developed during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond. Exploring the cultural contexts and aesthetic debates that animated Harlem in 1920s to 1930s, the course will focus on the politics of literary and theatrical production, and explore the fashioning and performance of New Negro identity through fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork, with special attention to theater/performance. This course will partner with Harlem's National Black Theater and work toward an understanding of the relationship between art/literature and socio-political change through the NBT's spring 2016 production of Dominique Morisseau's Blood on the Root, a multi-genre performance piece on racial injustice inspired by the 2006 Jena Six case in Louisiana.
Spring 2019: ENGL BC3196
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
ENGL 3196001/01203T Th 2:40pm - 3:55pm
504 Diana CenterKristin Carter427/60
French and Francophone Studies
FREN UN3421 Introduction To French and Francophone Studies II. 3 points.
Prerequisites: FREN UN3405 Advanced Grammar and Composition or an AP score of 5 or the director of undergraduate studies' permission.
Universalism vs. exceptionalism, tradition vs. modernity, integration and exclusion, racial, gender, regional, and national identities are considered in this introduction to the contemporary French-speaking world in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Authors include: Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sedar Senghor, Frantz Fanon, Maryse Condé.
Spring 2019: FREN UN3421
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
FREN 3421001/16069M W 8:40am - 9:55am
401 Hamilton HallTommaso Manfredini310/20
French (Barnard)
FREN BC3070 Negritude. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.
Analysis of the theoretical and literary precursors of négritude; major figures of the movement; relations with the Harlem Renaissance; and the formulation of creolity by contemporary Caribbean writers and thinkers. Authors will include Gobineau, Maran, Price-Mars, Hughes, McKay, Césaire, Senghor, Damas, Fanon, Sartre, Glissant, and Chamoiseau. Taught in French.General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
FREN BC3071 Major Literary Works of the French-Speaking World. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Introduction to major works of fiction from the French speaking countries of the Caribbean, West Africa, North Africa and Indochina. Considers some of the principal authors of these regions, and examines the sociopolitical, historical, and aesthetic considerations that have influenced Francophone literary production in the twentieth century. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.
FREN BC3072 Francophone Fiction: Special Topics. 4 points.
Looks at the portrayal of women as unsettling figures in the Francophone Caribbean literary universe. Examining the uncanny heroines in the novels of both male and female writers, students will identify the thematic commonalities and specific configurative strategies that emerge in the fictional representation of women in the region. The symbolic import of zombies, schizophrenics, and other "disordering" characters will be analyzed as indicators of and reflections on broader social realities. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.
Fall 2019: FREN BC3072
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
FREN 3072001/08216W 12:10pm - 2:00pm
Room TBAKaiama Glover418/20
FREN BC3073 Africa in Cinema. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Considerations of African-directed twentieth century films concerning French-speaking, sub-Saharan West Africa. Reflections on tradition and modernity, politics and popular culture, the status of women, youth problems, identity construction. Placement of African film within its own tradition. Class taught in English.
French and Romance Philology
FREN UN3421 Introduction To French and Francophone Studies II. 3 points.
Prerequisites: FREN UN3405 Advanced Grammar and Composition or an AP score of 5 or the director of undergraduate studies' permission.
Universalism vs. exceptionalism, tradition vs. modernity, integration and exclusion, racial, gender, regional, and national identities are considered in this introduction to the contemporary French-speaking world in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Authors include: Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sedar Senghor, Frantz Fanon, Maryse Condé.
Spring 2019: FREN UN3421
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
FREN 3421001/16069M W 8:40am - 9:55am
401 Hamilton HallTommaso Manfredini310/20
History
HIST W3540 History of the South. 3 points.
A survey of the history of the American South from the colonial era to the present day, with two purposes: first, to afford students an understanding of the special historical characteristics of the South and of southerners; and second, to explore what the experience of the South may teach about America as a nation. Group(s): D Field(s): US
HIST W3772 West African History. 3 points.
CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement
This course offers a survey of main themes in West African history over the last millenium, with particular emphasis on the period from the mid-15th through the 20th century. Themes include the age of West African empires (Ghana, Mali, Songhay); re-alignments of economic and political energies towards the Atlantic coast; the rise and decline of the trans-Atlantic trade in slaves; the advent and demise of colonial rule; and internal displacement, migrations, and revolutions. In the latter part of the course, we will appraise the continuities and ruptures of the colonial and post-colonial eras. Group(s): C Field(s): AFR
HIST W4429 Telling About the South. 4 points.
A remarkable array of Southern historians, novelists, and essayists have done what Shreve McCannon urges Quentin Compson to do in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!--tell about the South--producing recognized masterpieces of American literature. Taking as examples certain writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, this course explores the issues they confronted, the relationship between time during which and about they wrote, and the art of the written word as exemplified in their work. Group(s): D Field(s): US Limited enrollment. Priority given to senior history majors. After obtaining permission from the professor, please add yourself to the course wait list so the department can register you in the course.
HIST W4518 Research Seminar: Columbia and Slavery. 4 points.
In this course, students will write​ ​ original, independent​ ​ papers of around 25 pages, based on research in both​ ​ primary and secondary sources, on an aspect of the relationship between Columbia​ ​ College​,​ and its colonial predecessor King's College, with the institution of slavery​.​
HIST W4768 Writing Contemporary African History. 4 points.
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. SEE UNDERGRADUATE SEMINAR SECTION OF THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT'S WEBSITE.
An exploration of the historiography of contemporary (post-1960) Africa, this course asks what African history is, what is unique about it, and what is at stake in its production. Field(s): AFR
HIST W4928 Comparative Slavery and Abolition in the Atlantic World. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: seminar application required. SEE UNDERGRADUATE SEMINAR SECTION OF THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT'S WEBSITE.
This seminar investigates the experiences of slavery and freedom among African-descended people living and laboring in the various parts of the Atlantic World. The course will trace critical aspects of these two major, interconnected historical phenomena with an eye to how specific cases either manifested or troubled broader trends across various slaveholding societies. The first half of the course addresses the history of slavery and the second half pertains to experiences in emancipation. However, since the abolition of slavery occurs at different moments in various areas of the Atlantic World, the course will adhere to a thematic rather than a chronological structure, in its examination of the multiple avenues to freedom available in various regions. Weekly units will approach major themes relevant to both slavery and emancipation, such as racial epistemologies among slaveowners/employers, labor regimes in slave and free societies, cultural innovations among slave and freed communities, gendered discourses and sexual relations within slave and free communities, and slaves’ and freepeople’s resistance to domination. The goal of this course is to broaden students’ comprehension of the history of slavery and freedom, and to promote an understanding of the transition from slavery to freedom in the Americas as creating both continuities and ruptures in the structure and practices of the various societies concerned. Group(s): ABCD Field(s): US/LA
History (Barnard)
HIST BC1760 Introduction to African History: 1700-Present. 4 points.
Survey of African history from the 18th century to the contemporary period. We will explore six major themes in African History: Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World, Colonialism in Africa, the 1940s, Nationalism and Independence Movements, Post-Colonialism in Africa, and Issues in the Making of Contemporary Africa.
Spring 2019: HIST BC1760
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
HIST 1760001/07601T Th 11:40am - 12:55pm
Ll103 Diana CenterAbosede George437
HIST BC2180 Merchants, Pirates, and Slaves in the Making of Atlantic Capitalism. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Examines how the Atlantic Ocean and its boundaries were tied together through the flow of people, goods, and ideas. Studies the cultures of the communities formed by merchants, pirates, and slaves; investigates how their interactions and frictions combined to shape the unique combination of liberty and oppression that characterizes early modern capitalism.
HIST BC2980 World Migration. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC I)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC II).
Overview of human migration from pre-history to the present. Sessions on classical Rome; Jewish diaspora; Viking, Mongol, and Arab conquests; peopling of New World, European colonization, and African slavery; 19th-century European mass migration; Chinese and Indian diasporas; resurgence of global migration in last three decades, and current debates.
Fall 2019: HIST BC2980
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
HIST 2980001/08530M W 1:10pm - 2:25pm
Room TBAJose Moya347/59
HIST BC3402 Selected Topics in American Women's History. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.
Critical examination of recent trends in modern U.S. women's history, with particular attention to the intersection of gender, sexuality, class, and race. Topics will include: state regulation of marriage and sexuality, roots of modern feminism, altered meanings of motherhood and work, and changing views of the body.
HIST BC3546 The Fourteenth Amendment and Its Uses. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.
The role of the 14th Amendment in shaping the modern American Constitution; theories of judicial review; the rise and fall of economic due process; the creation of civil liberties; the civil rights revolution; and the end of states' rights.
HIST BC3587 Remembering Slavery: Critiquing Modern Representations of the Peculiar Institution. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.
The enslavement of people of African descent signifies a crucial historical and cultural marker not only for African-Americans but also for Americans in general. We will interrogate how and why images of slavery continue to be invoked within the American sociocultural landscape (e.g., in films, documentaries, historical novels, and science fiction).
HIST BC3763 Children and Childhood in African History. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.
This course focuses on the history of childhood and youth in African societies and how young people as historical agents have impacted the social histories of their communities. How did young Africans live in past times? What forces shaped understanding of their status as children or youth? How have major historical processes such as colonialism, industrialization, apartheid, and liberation, neocolonialism, and neoliberalism impacted and been impacted by children and youth in Africa? What roles have young people themselves played in the making of African histories? These questions will be explored in course readings, discussions, and students' original research projects.
HIST BC3771 Critical Perspectives on the Mobilization of Race and Ethnicity on the Continent and in the Study of Africa. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Standing.
Critically examines the relationship between social difference and narratives and practices of power in historical and contemporary African publics. Race and Ethnicity are the key axes of social difference that will be examined. Other axes of difference such as gender, sexuality, class, caste, generation and nationality will also be examined through points of intersection with race and ethnicity.
HIST BC3905 Capitalism, Colonialism, and Culture: A Global History. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Permission of Instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.
From Indian Ocean worlds of the seventeenth century, to Atlantic world slavery, to the establishment of colonies in Asia and Africa during the nineteenth century, colonization was critical to the development of metropolitan ideas regarding politics and personhood. This seminar will examine these histories, along with emerging constructions of race and gender, as precursors to debates about human rights and humanitarianism in the twentieth century.
Music
MUSI V2020 Salsa, Soca, and Reggae: Popular Musics of the Caribbean. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART)., CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement
A survey of the major syncretic urban popular music styles of the Caribbean, exploring their origins, development, and sociocultural context.
MUSI W4435 Music and Performance in the African Postcolony. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
This course examines music and performance in various African contexts, focusing on the postcolonial period. It will explore the complex interactions between music, politics, nation, race, and mediation through case studies from Ghana, Nigeria, DRC, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. In addition, discussions will involve what is meant to speak about "African music," and class will theorize about the conditions of musical production in the context of postcolonialism.
MUSI GU4540 Histories of Post-1960's Jazz. 3 points.
Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent.
Historiographical issues surrounding the performance of jazz and improvised musics after 1960. Topics include genre and canon formation, gender, race, and cultural nationalisms, economics and infrastructure, debates around art and the vernacular, globalization, and media reception. Reading knowledge of music is not required.
Political Science (Barnard)
POLS BC3101 * Colloquium on Black Political Thought. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: POLS W1013 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. Barnard syllabus.
Advanced political theory colloquium treats black political thought as concerned with the universal problem of domination. Examines how black thinkers relate democracy, slavery and race; redefine race consciousness as linked fate; articulate new social theories to suggest new "meanings" for race; redefine the political to address social and aesthetic concerns.
POLS V3604 Civil Wars and International Intervention in Africa. 3 points.
Enrollment limited to 110.Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: at least sophomore standing, except in consultation with the instructor.
This course analyzes the causes of violence in civil wars. It examines the debates around emergency aid, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. In addition, it focuses on recent conflict situations in Africa -- especially Congo, Sudan, and Rwanda -- as a background against which to understand the distinct dynamics of violence, peace, and international interventions in civil conflicts. (Cross-listed by the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.)
POLS BC3810 *Colloquium on Aid, Politics & Violence in Africa. 4 points.
Prerequisites: POLS UN1601 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only.
Explores the concepts, theoretical traditions and debates around development and humanitarian aid, focusing on the relationships between aid, politics, and violence. It looks at the political and military impacts of aid, the linkage between humanitarian aid and conflict resolution, and aid's contribution to perpetuating subtle forms of domination. (Cross-listed by the Africana Studies and the Human Rights Programs.)
Fall 2019: POLS BC3810
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
POLS 3810001/09158T 4:10pm - 6:00pm
Room TBASeverine Autesserre413/16
Political Science
POLS UN3619 Nationalism and Contemporary World Politics. 3 points.
The causes and consequences of nationalism. Nationalism as a cause of conflict in contemporary world politics. Strategies for mitigating nationalist and ethnic conflict.
Spring 2019: POLS UN3619
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
POLS 3619001/12559T Th 10:10am - 11:25am
313 FayerweatherJack Snyder345/74
Religion
RELI V2615 Religions of Harlem. 3 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Through a range of field exercises and classroom guests, this course will introduce students to the rich religious history of Harlem, while also challenging them to document and analyze the diversity of Harlem's contemporary religious scene.
RELI V3630 Religion and Black Popular Cultures. 3 points.
As an exploration of the relationship between religion, race, and popular culture, the course will begin with theoretical readings that expose students to a variety of definitions of and approaches to each of these categories. After tackling these theoretical concerns, the remainder of the course will entail a cross genre and thematic engagement with the terrain of black popular culture(s) in which students will be challenged to apply new theoretical resources in order to interpret a wide range of "religious" phenomena.
RELI V3650 Religion and the Civil Rights Movement. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Examination of the role of religion in the drive for civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s. The course will look at the role of activists, churches, clergy, sermons, and music in forging the consensus in favor of civil rights.
RELI W4826 Religion, Race and Slavery. 0 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
This course explores the religious aspects of race and slavery from the Bible through the abolition of slavery in and around the Enlightenment, ending in the post-colonial era. The focus is mostly on the Atlantic World.
Sociology (Barnard)
SOCI UN3235 Social Movements. 3 points.
Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology suggested.
Social movements and the theories social scientists use to explain them, with emphasis on the American civil rights and women's movements. Topics include theories of participation, the personal and social consequences of social movements, the rationality of protest, the influence of ideology, organization, and the state on movement success, social movements, and the mass media.
Fall 2019: SOCI UN3235
Course NumberSection/Call NumberTimes/LocationInstructorPointsEnrollment
SOCI 3235001/09586M W 2:40pm - 3:55pm
Room TBADebra Minkoff335/45
SOCI V3247 The Immigrant Experience, Old and New. 3 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC I)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
The immigrant experience in the United States. Topics include ideologies of the melting pot; social, cultural, and economic life of earlier immigrants; the distinctiveness of the African-American experience; recent surge of "new" immigrants (Asians, Latinos, West Indians); and changing American views of immigration.
SOCI BC3913 Inequalities: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in U.S. Law and Society. 4 points.
This class will examine the historical roots and ongoing persistence of social, economic, and political inequality and the continuing role that it plays in U.S. society by examining how such issues have been addressed both in social science and in law.
Drama and Theatre Arts (Barnard)
ENTH BC3144 Black Theatre. 4 points.
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 16 students.
Exploration of Black Theater, specifically African-American performance traditions, as an intervening agent in racial, cultural, and national identity. African-American theatre artists to be examined include Amiri Baraka, Kia Corthron, W.E.B. Du Bois, Angelina Grimke, Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan-Lori Parks, Adrian Piper, and August Wilson. Fulfills one (of two) required courses in dramatic literature for Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts major.
Women's Studies (Barnard)
WMST BC3134 Unheard Voices: African Women's Literature. 4 points.
BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).
Not offered during 2019-20 academic year.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 14 students.
How does one talk of women in Africa without thinking of Africa as a ‘mythic unity’? We will consider the political, racial, social and other contexts in which African women write and are written about in the context of their located lives in Africa and in the African Diaspora. This course is the same as AFRS BC3134 Unheard Voices: African Women's Literature.
WMST W4305 Feminist Postcolonial Theory. 4 points.
Prerequisites: Critical Approaches and/or permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 20 students.
Examines important concerns, concepts and methodological approaches of postcolonial theory, with a focus on feminist perspectives on and strategies for the decolonization of Eurocentric knowledge-formations and practices of Western colonialism. Topics for discussion and study include orientalism, colonialism, nationalism and gender, the politics of cultural representations, subjectivity and subalternity, history, religion, and contemporary global relations of domination.