The Courses

(All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise noted.)

AFROAM 101 Introduction to Black Studies (4 credits)
Interdisciplinary introduction to the basic concepts and literature in the disciplines covered by Black Studies. Includes history, the social sciences, and humanities as well as conceptual frameworks for investigation and analysis of Black history and culture. (Gen. Ed. I,DU)

AFROAM 117 Survey of Afro-American Literature (4 credits)
The major figures and themes in Afro-American literature, analyzing specific works in detail and surveying the early history of Afro-American literature. What the slave narratives, poetry, short stories, novels, drama, and folklore of the period reveal about the social, economic, psychological, and artistic lives of the writers and their characters, both male and female. Explores the conventions of each of these genres in the period under discussion to better understand the relation of the material to the dominant traditions of the time and the writers' particular contributions to their own art. (Gen. Ed. AL,DU)

AFROAM 118 Survey of Afro-American Literature II (4 credits)
Introductory level survey of Afro-American literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the present, including DuBois, Hughes, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Walker, Morrison, Baraka and Lorde. (Gen. Ed. AL,DU)

AFROAM 132 African-American History 1619-1860 (4 credits)
The main aim of this course is to make you familiar with some of the most important developments and issues in African American history until the Civil War. We will focus on the black experience under slavery and the struggle for emancipation. Topics include the Atlantic slave trade, evolution of African American communities and culture, the free black community, the distinct experience of black women, and the black protest tradition. The format of the course is lecture supplemented by class discussions. (Gen.Ed. HS,DU)

AFROAM 133 African-American History Civil War-1954 (4 credits)
Major issues and actions from the beginning of the Civil War to the 1954 Supreme Court decision. Focus on political and social history: transition from slavery to emancipation and Reconstruction; the Age of Booker T. Washington; urban migrations, rise of the ghettoes; the ideologies and movements from integrationism to black nationalism. (Gen. Ed. HS,DU)

AFROAM 151 Literature & Culture (4 credits)
This course focuses on African American cultural expressions contributing to the shape and character of contemporary African American (and U.S.) culture and how these forms have influenced and been represented by African American writers. The course uses African American literature and culture of the 1960s and 1970s in their many manifestations, especially poetry, criticism, theater, music, and the visual arts as an entry into the concerns listed above. A particular focus of the course will be the ways in which domestic and international political movements, such as Civil Rights, Black Power, anti-colonial, and non-aligned intersected with black cultural efforts, deeply influencing the formal and thematic choices of African American artists. (Gen. Ed. AL,DU)

AFROAM 156 Revolutionary Concepts in African American Music II (4 credits)
This course will examine the development of African American music during the twentieth century into the twenty-first century. Literature and history will be examined alongside documentaries and footage of famous performers in conjunction to their historical period and the cultural and political events of the time. The Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement, post-Civil Rights era, and the Black Lives Matter Movement will encompass the scope of this course. In addition, the course will consider the diasporic reaches of “Afro-Latinidad” (bachata, salsa, etc.) and Caribbean influences such as reggae and dub. (Gen. Ed. AT,DU)

AFROAM 161. Introduction to Afro-American Political Science (4 credits)
Survey of the politics of the Black community in the U.S. The history of Black political development, major theories which explain Black political life, social, economic, psychological and institutional environment from which Black politics flows. Attention paid to 1988 presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson and its relevance to the 2008 election of Barack Obama.  (Gen. Ed. SB,DU)

AFROAM 170 The Grassroots Experience in American Life and Culture I (4 credits)
This course combines instruction in research techniques in a variety of Humanistic and Social Science disciplines, and hands-on experience with those techniques, with substantive materials focusing on the long struggle of minority populations for full participation in American cultural and public life. (Gen. Ed. HS,DU)

AFROAM 234 The Harlem Renaissance (4 credits)
Exploration of the cultural explosion also termed the New Negro movement, from W.E.B. Du Bois through the early work of Richard Wright. Essays, poetry, and fiction, and the blues, jazz, and folklore of the time examined in terms of how Harlem Renaissance artists explored their spiritual and cultural roots, dealt with gender issues, sought artistic aesthetic and style adequate to reflect such concerns. Readings supplemented by contemporary recordings, visual art, and videos. (Gen. Ed. AL,DU)

AFROAM 236 History of the Civil Rights Movement (4 credits)
Examination of the Civil Rights Movement from the Brown v. Topeka decision to the rise of Black power. All the major organizations of the period, e.g., SCLC, SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and the Urban League. The impact on white students and the anti-war movement. (Gen. Ed. HS,DU)

AFROAM 250 African American Short Stories (4 credits)
Students in this course will receive an introduction to the African American short story and to the major themes, issues, concepts, as well as the literary techniques and forms prevalent in African American literature. (Gen. Ed. AL,DU)

AFROAM 254. Introduction to African Studies (4 credits)
Introduction to Africa from an interdisciplinary perspective. The chronological sequence from pre-history to contemporary times. Political development and processes, the arts, ethnography, social structures, and economies. (Gen. Ed. HS)

AFROAM 264 Foundations of Black Education in the U.S. (4 credits)
The education of blacks from Reconstruction to 1954. Includes public schools, colleges, and non-school education. The involvement of religious associations, philanthropic organizations, the Freedman’s Bureau, the Black church, and the Federal Government will also be discussed. (Gen. Ed. HS,DU)

AFROAM 326 Black Women in U.S. History (4 credits)
The history of African American women from the experience of slavery to the present. Emphasis on the effect of racist institutions and practices on women. The ways in which women organized themselves to address the needs of African Americans in general and their own in particular. The achievements of such leaders as Mary Church Terrell, Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, and Mary McLeod Bethune as well as lesser known women. (Gen. Ed. HS,DU)

AFROAM 345 Southern Literature (4 credits)
This course offers an introduction to Southern Black Literature through a sampling of classic texts and more recent prose and poetry. In addition to surveying a rich canon of literature that has its origins in the antebellum slave narrative tradition, we will also study: (1) networks, alliances, and patterns of migration connecting the U.S. South and the Global South (especially the Caribbean); (2) black queer and trans life in the South; (3) recent film and television set in the Deep South; (4 structures and experiences of dispossession and poverty. We will also look at media coverage and scholarship to explore struggles happening in the South right now, especially movements around armed self-defense/community policing; cooperative farming and economic self-determination; disaster capitalism and environmental dispossession in places like the Gulf Coast and in Puerto Rico; the toppling/removal of Confederate statues and fight against white supremacist organizations and activities. (Gen. Ed. AL,DU)

AFROAM 365 Composition: Style & Organization
Expository writing focusing primarily on argumentative and narrative essays. Discussion and practice of logic—inductive and deductive reasoning—as it relates to the argumentative essay form. Topics as thesis on main idea, organization, style, unity, supporting evidence, avoiding logical fallacies, and basic writing mechanics, including constructing sentences, paragraphing, transitions, and correct grammar. Junior year writing is required for all majors in AfroAm; secondary majors have the option to complete this requirement in their primary major.

AFROAM 494DI Du Bois Senior Seminar (for Juniors and Seniors)
This course is the senior capstone course required for all majors in Afro-American Studies. It also fulfills the University's Integrative Learning Experience (IE) requirement. This course has two aims: (1) to reflect on your educational journey at UMass as well as to further explore your intellectual and professional goals; and (2) to prepare you to complete your senior project in Afro-American Studies. The course will provide ample space and time to brainstorm and plan your senior project in consultation with the instructor and your peers.

AFROAM 590B. Black Body Studies in Africa and its Diasporas  (Undergrad/Grad)
Black Body Studies is an emerging subfield of Africana/Black studies that uses the lens of the body and embodiment to examine the initiative and creativity of people of African descent in Africa and its diasporas while also investigating how Black bodies are used by others to perpetuate white supremacy, global anti-Black racism, and other forms of harm and exclusion to Black individuals and communities (Covington-Ward, article in progress). This course will examine some of the most important texts to examine Black bodies from multiple perspectives and across different geographical regions including Africa, North and South America, and the Caribbean. Using a multidisciplinary approach bringing literature, ethnography, sociological and historical texts into conversation, the course takes a thematic approach focusing on topics such as the Black body as related to: the question of humanity, violence and anti-Black racism, religion and spirituality, reproductive rights and justice, biopolitics, disabled/abled bodies, and fat phobia. Students will be exposed to both classic texts and newer texts that provide myriad perspectives on Black Body Studies.

AFROAM 590D. The Poetry & Prophecies of Phillis Wheatley (Undergrad/Grad)
This course emerges from a recent renaissance of scholarship and creative work about the enslaved poet and freedom dreamer, Phillis Wheatley (Peters). Above all else, the course will take shape through deep and careful readings of the poet’s body of work. We will also place Wheatley within a rich tradition of black feminist poetics and read a number of poems that have been dedicated to or otherwise inspired by her across the centuries. We will read the best of recent scholarship on Wheatley, with particular attention to work that: deepens our understanding of her relationship not to her enslavers, but to her kin, community, and to other black artists; reads her in the context of West African and diasporic traditions; attends to the politics of power and pleasure in her poems; examines the circulation of her poetry within local, regional, and transatlantic networks of both print and manuscript cultures in the late eighteenth century; and traces the history of her memorialization by writers, readers, and other communities and groups. The course will include some poetry writing in and outside class, but no prior creative writing experience is required or expected. Poets, researchers, curious students, and Wheatley enthusiasts are all encouraged to enroll.