AFR 202 CC: AFRICANA STUDIES MATTER

CC: Africana Studies Matter:  B(l)ack to the Future.  How has our understanding of the “black experience” changed from the 19th and 20th centuries up to the present day?  What constitutes a “black perspective”?  How and why did continental and diasporic Africans become “black people”?  Students will explore the origins of the black history movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and trace the development of Africana Studies as a discipline from the civil rights, Black Power, and student movements of the 1960s up through the intersectional perspectives of the present day.  Readings and discussions will explore topics such as black feminism, black radical thought, and black nationalism, and consider the problems of existence as posed by black thought in history literature, cinema, and music.  Assignments will examine the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Ella Baker, and others.  Students will read blogs and journal articles, analyze changes in media, and critically examine a variety of black intersectional perspectives as they develop the tools to understand the complexity of black thought and culture in the modern world.