AFST 101 - Introduction to Africana Studies

This course provides students with an introduction to Africana Studies. The course is designed to examine the histories, literatures, aesthetics, spiritual, cultural, and political traditions of people of African descent. Students will consider the historic and contemporary experiences of African descendants in the Americas, particularly the United States, Central America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Then the course turns to considerations of the lesser-known histories of African descendants to Asia via the Pacific rim and consider the ways in which Black internationalism, and varying concepts of Blackness itself, may look different if students center their gaze on the trans-Pacific world, and apart from Paul Gilroy’s “Black Atlantic” paradigm. Alongside these concerns, will be a focus on Continental Africa, and how diasporic members imagine and encounter Africa, what constitutes a diaspora, and what makes Africans and people of African descent around the world an African Diaspora. As an introductory subject, this course is not meant to be a sweeping account of all related works associated with the geographical locales of the African Diaspora but rather, a critical analysis of the literature and artistic works that expands existing debates, encourages dialogue, and challenge students to think creatively about the changing contours and focal points of Africana Studies. Letter grade. (Offered as needed.) 3 credits