AFAM 1398a / CGSC 2770a / EDST 1177a / PHIL 1177a, Propaganda, Ideology, and Democracy  Staff

Historical, philosophical, psychological, and linguistic introduction to the issues and challenges that propaganda raises for liberal democracy. How propaganda can work to undermine democracy; ways in which schools and the press are implicated; the use of propaganda by social movements to address democracy's deficiencies; the legitimacy of propaganda in cases of political crisis.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

AFAM 1615b / WGSS 1125b, “We Interrupt this Program: The Multidimensional Histories of Queer and Trans Politics”  Roderick Ferguson

In 1991, the arts organizations Visual AIDS and The Kitchen collaborated with video artist and filmmaker Charles Atlas to produce the live television broadcast "We Interrupt this Program." Part educational presentation, part performance piece, the show was aired in millions of homes across the nation. The program, in The Kitchen’s words, “sought to feature voices that had often been marginalized within many discussions of AIDS, in particular people of color and women.”This course builds upon and is inspired by this aspect of Atlas's visionary presentation, an aspect that used the show to produce a critically multicultural platform that could activate cultural histories and critical traditions from various communities. In effect, the course uses this aspect as a metonym for the racial, gender, sexual, and class heterogeneity of queer art and organizing. It conducts its investigation by looking at a variety of primary materials that illustrate the heterogeneous makeup of queer and trans politics. The course also draws on more recent texts and visual works that arose from the earlier contexts that the primary texts helped to illuminate and shape.   HU  RP  0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

AFAM 1946b / ECON 2171b / EDST 1271b / EDST 271, Urban Inequalities and Educational Inequality  Gerald Jaynes

Analysis of contemporary policy problems related to academic under performance in lower income urban schools and the concomitant achievement gaps among various racial and ethnic groups in United States K-12 education. Historical review of opportunity inequalities and policy solutions proposed to ameliorate differences in achievement and job readiness. Students benefit from practical experience and interdisciplinary methods, including a lab component with time spent in a New Haven high school.  Prerequisites: Any course offered by Education Studies, or one course in history or any social science, either: Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology.  EDST 110 is preferred, although not required.  SO
TTh 10:30am-11:20am

AFAM 1952a / PLSC 2363a / SOCY 2002a, Topics in Contemporary Social Theory  Philip Gorski

In-depth introduction to recent developments in social theory, with particular emphasis on the last twenty years. Focus on three distinct areas of study: the building blocks and contrasting understandings of human persons and social action; the competing theories of the social structure of markets, institutions, cultures, social fields, and actor-networks; and the theoretical controversies concerning nations, states and empires, ethnic and racial identity, and the relation between facts and values in social research. Authors include Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu and Bruno Latour. SOCY 151 or equivalent is strongly recommended.  WR, SO  0 Course cr
MW 9am-10:15am

AFAM 1986a / LAST 1214a / PLSC 2417a / SOCY 1704a, Contesting Injustice  Staff

Exploration of why, when, and how people organize collectively to challenge political, social, and economic injustice. Cross-national comparison of the extent, causes, and consequences of inequality. Analysis of mobilizations for social justice in both U.S. and international settings. Intended primarily for first years and sophomores.  SO  0 Course cr
HTBA

AFAM 2150a / ER&M 2534a / HIST 1131a / HSHM 2520a, History of Anti-Black Racism and Medicine  Staff

The course traces how anti-Black racism shaped the development of western medicine in the Americas. It examines how ideas of anti-Blackness shaped the work of health practitioners and the experiences of patients. It engages the emergence of racial science and scientific racism, and how they contributed to the production of medical knowledge. More importantly, it centers the voices and experiences of Black people, and the various ways challenged racism through knowledge production and activism. It also addresses the enduring legacies of anti-Black racism in medical practice, and its impact on health inequality.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* AFAM 2310b / AMST 4445b, Politics and Culture of the U.S. Color Line  Matthew Jacobson and Lisa Lowe

The significance of race in U.S. political culture, from the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson to the election of an African American president. Race as a central organizer of American political and social life.  HU  RP
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AFAM 2317a / TDPS 2012a, Queer Caribbean Performance  Amanda Reid

With its lush and fantastic landscape, fabulous carnivalesque aesthetics, and rich African Diaspora Religious traditions, the Caribbean has long been a setting where New World black artists have staged competing visions of racial and sexual utopia and dystopia. However, these foreigner-authored fantasies have often overshadowed the lived experience and life storytelling of Caribbean subjects. This course explores the intersecting performance cultures, politics, and sensual/sexual practices that have constituted queer life in the Caribbean region and its diaspora. Placing Caribbean queer of color critique alongside key moments in twentieth and twenty-first century performance history at home and abroad, we ask how have histories of the plantation, discourses of race and nation, migration, and revolution led to the formation of regionally specific queer identifications. What about the idea of the “tropics” has made it such as fertile ground for queer performance making, and how have artists from the region identified or dis-identified with these aesthetic formations? This class begins with an exploration of theories of queer diaspora and queer of color critique’s roots in black feminisms. We cover themes of exile, religious rites, and organizing as sights of queer political formation and creative community in the Caribbean.    HU
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AFAM 2339b / AMST 4461b / EDST 2209b / ER&M 1692b / WGSS 2202b, Identity, Diversity, and Policy in U.S. Education  Craig Canfield

Introduction to critical theory (feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, trans studies, Indigenous studies) as a fundamental tool for understanding and critiquing identity, diversity, and policy in U.S. education. Exploration of identity politics and theory, as they figure in education policy. Methods for applying theory and interventions to interrogate issues in education. Application of theory and interventions to policy creation and reform. EDST 1110 recommended.  WR, HU
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AFAM 3145a / HIST 3145a, Enslavement in the Americas, 1500–1900  Edward Rugemer

This course explores the practice of enslavement in the Americas from the beginnings of colonization through the nineteenth century. The racialized slavery that emerged in the Americas was new to World History, developed by European colonists to exploit the natural resources of the Americas. Initially, European colonists enslaved indigenous peoples wherever possible, yet by the late sixteenth century the enslavement of Africans had become far more common. We focus upon North American and the Caribbean, where European colonists developed sophisticated agricultural enterprises that produced for export to the European market and were completely dependent upon the enslaved labor of Africans. An enormous ocean commerce trafficked almost twelve million enslaved captives from the Atlantic coasts of Africa to work on the plantations of the Americas. The commerce in tobacco, sugar, rum, and cotton enabled these colonies to develop. Black people resisted enslavement at multiple levels, and throughout the Americas there emerged the Black cultures, languages, musics, struggles, and histories that we know and love today.  WR, HU
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AFAM 3170b / HIST 172Jb / HSHM 4630b, Care Work: Intersectional Pedagogical, Experiential, and Theoretical Approaches to Healing  Ayah Nuriddin

What does it mean to “care”? What models of care work do we need to attend to current crises? What models of care work can we learn from the past? Can we imagine a world where the concept of care, in its most inclusive, embracing, holistic, liberatory form operates as a fundamental value driving our global societies? These are some of the questions that inspired the creation of this course. In this seminar, students explore theoretical feminist, Black feminist, and Crip-of-Color perspectives of care work as well as experiential healing modalities that might interrupt cycles of harm often experienced by care workers.  HU
HTBA

* AFAM 3615a / WGSS 3305a, Black Feminist Theory  Gail Lewis

This course is designed to introduce you to some of the major themes in black feminist theory. The course does so by presenting classic texts with more recent ones to give you a sense of the vibrancy of black feminist theory for addressing past and present concerns. Rather than interpret black feminist theory as a critical formation that simply puts race, gender, sexuality, and class into conversation with one another, the course apprehends that formation as one that produced epistemic shifts in how we understand politics, empire, history, the law, and literature. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the areas into which black feminism intervened. It is merely a sample of some of the most vibrant ideological and discursive contexts in which black feminism caused certain epistemic transformations.    SO
T 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AFAM 3675a / AMST 3355a / ER&M 3574a / FREN 3675a / LAST 2675a, Haiti Writes I  Marlene Daut and Kaiama Glover

From nineteenth-century antislavery pamphleteering to accounts of ecological catastrophe in 21st-century fiction, Haitian literature has resounded across the globe since the nation's revolutionaries declared independence in 1804. Starting with pre-revolutionary writing, including the emergence of Haitian Creole letters, moving through a long, largely francophone nineteenth century, to present-day Haitian writing in the English language, this two-semester exploration of Haitian literature presents the political, cultural, and historical frameworks necessary to comprehend Haiti's vast literary output. Whether writing in Haiti or its wide-ranging diasporas, Haitian authors have boldly contributed to pressing conversations in global letters while reflecting Haiti's unique cultural and historical experiences. Considering an expansive array of poets, playwrights, and novelists - such as Baron de Vastey, Juste Chanlatte, Demesvar Delorme, Edwidge Danticat, René Depestre, Kettly Mars, Dany Laferrière, and Évelyne Trouillot – this course engages students in a fresh examination of Haiti’s richly polyglot and transnational literary tradition that spans more than two centuries.
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AFAM 3713a / TDPS 3301a, Embodying Story  Renee Robinson

The intersection of storytelling and movement as seen through historical case studies, cross-disciplinary inquiry, and studio practice. Drawing on eclectic source materials from different artistic disciplines, ranging from the repertory of Alvin Ailey to journalism, architectural studies, cartoon animation, and creative processes, students develop the critical, creative, and technical skills through which to tell their own stories in movement. No prior dance experience necessary. Limited Enrollment. See Canvas for application.  HU
MW 10:30am-12:20pm

AFAM 3860a / ENGL 3860a, Black Literature  Staff

If we read it carefully, black literature tells a hidden history of the New World. This course introduces students to the key texts, authors, themes and traditions of African American literature. Reading major works by black writers, from the 18th century to the present, we will chart the historical conditions, social movements, and intellectual circuits that shaped this literature, as well as the innovative forms and aesthetics that characterize its signature style, depth, and dynamism. Engaging in the writing, reading, and archival practices of literary studies, we will explore black literatures as modes of expression, representation, critique, subversion, politics, fantasy, prophecy, and beyond. Authors include Frederick Douglass, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison, and more.   WR, HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* AFAM 3929a / SOCY 3742a, Managing Blackness in a "White Space"  Elijah Anderson

White space” is a perceptual category that assumes a particular space to be predominantly white, one where black people are typically unexpected, marginalized when present, and made to feel unwelcome—a space that blacks perceive to be informally “off-limits” to people like them and where on occasion they encounter racialized disrespect and other forms of resistance. This course explores the challenge black people face when managing their lives in this white space.  SO
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AFAM 4134a / AFST 4834a / ENGL 4834a, Postcolonial World Literatures, 1945 to the Present  Stephanie Newell

Introduction to key debates about postwar world literatures in English, to the politics of English as a language of postcolonial literature, and to debates about globalization and culture. Themes include colonial history, postcolonial migration, translation, national identity, cosmopolitanism, and global literary prizes.  WR, HU
Th 9:25am-11:15am

* AFAM 4357a / AFST 4457a / AMST 4470 / ER&M 4067a / FREN 481 / FREN 4810, Racial Republic: African Diasporic Literature and Culture in Postcolonial France  Fadila Habchi

This is an interdisciplinary seminar on French cultural history from the 1930s to the present. We focus on issues concerning race and gender in the context of colonialism, postcolonialism, and migration. The course investigates how the silencing of colonial history has been made possible culturally and ideologically, and how this silencing has in turn been central to the reorganizing of French culture and society from the period of decolonization to the present. We ask how racial regimes and spaces have been constructed in French colonial discourses and how these constructions have evolved in postcolonial France. We examine postcolonial African diasporic literary writings, films, and other cultural productions that have explored the complex relations between race, colonialism, historical silences, republican universalism, and color-blindness. Topics include the 1931 Colonial Exposition, Black Paris, decolonization, universalism, the Trente Glorieuses, the Paris massacre of 1961, anti-racist movements, the "beur" author, memory, the 2005 riots, and contemporary afro-feminist and decolonial movements.  HU
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AFAM 4380a, Senior Colloquium: African American Studies  Sarah Mahurin

A seminar on issues and approaches in African American studies. The colloquium offers students practical help in refining their senior essay topics and developing research strategies. Students discuss assigned readings and share their research experiences and findings. During the term, students are expected to make substantial progress on their senior essays; they are required to submit a prospectus, an annotated bibliography, and a draft of one-quarter of the essay.
M 7pm-8:50pm

* AFAM 4779a / MUSI 4480a, Music of the Caribbean: Cuba and Jamaica  Michael Veal

An examination of the Afro-diasporic music cultures of Cuba and Jamaica, placing the historical succession of musical genres and traditions into social, cultural, and political contexts. Cuban genres studied include religious/folkloric traditions (Lucumi/Santeria and Abakua), rumba, son, mambo, pachanga/charanga, salsa, timba and reggaeton. Jamaican genres studied include: folkloric traditions (etu/tambu/kumina), Jamaican R&B, ska, rock steady, reggae, ragga/dancehall. Prominent themes include: slavery, Afro-diasporic cultural traditions, Black Atlantic culture, nationalism/independence/post-colonial culture, relationships with the United States, music & gender/sexuality, technology.  HU
MW 11:35am-12:50pm