FYS 51 Black Internationalism: Black Freedom Beyond Borders
This course introduces students to the concept of Global Africa—a framework for understanding the historical and ongoing connections between Africa and its diaspora across time and space. Animated by Pan-Africanism, a philosophy committed to the political and cultural unity and liberation of African-descended peoples worldwide, the course examines Black internationalism as a set of global practices, knowledges, and solidarities forged in struggle. Through a series of historically grounded case studies, students will explore how African-descended peoples have mobilized across borders to resist and confront slavery, colonialism, racial oppression and various iterations of imperial and capitalist exploitation. Engaging analyses of primary and secondary sources, documentaries and digital archives, this course foregrounds historical movements, organizations and key actors in global circuits of exchange, emphasizing the transmission of strategies and visions of emancipation, self-determination, and anti-imperial world-making.
Open only to first-year frosh.