In this course students will be introduced to a series of Afro-contemporary dance warm ups and dance combinations that are drawn from a broad range of dance traditions of the African diaspora with a particular focus on Afro Brazilian, Afro Cuban and Haitian dance forms, modern dance techniques, and somatic movement practices. Our study of these dance disciplines will inform the movement vocabulary, technical training, class discussions, and choreography we experience in this course. Students will learn more about the dances and rhythms for the Orishas of Brazil and Cuba, and the Loa of Haiti. Dance combinations will consist of dynamic movement patterns that condition the body for strength, flexibility, endurance, musicality and coordination. Through this approach to our warm ups and class choreography, we will deepen our analysis and understanding of how African diaspora movement traditions are inherently embedded in many expressions of the broadly termed form known as contemporary modern dance.
Theater and Social Justice: Skills for Rethinking Everything
Mondays 2:30pm-5:20pm
3 units
Letter / Credit / No-Credit
Roble Gym Room 136 & 137
Instructor: Ellen Sebastian Chang
In this course we will employ theater foundations (writing, acting, staging and direction) to interrogate individual and collective belief systems prescribed through our lineage, geography, genetics, culture and class. We will ask big questions like: How do we rethink collective narratives? What can be made in the midst of ongoing pandemics and emergencies? Who am I within and beyond my current circumstances? Together we will learn from diverse practitioners within science fiction, documentary filmmaking, theater, site-specificity, and environmental activism to create performances that ignite our imaginations and skillsets for enacting social change.
WINTER 2023 – IDA VISITING ARTIST COURSE
Spoken Word Poetry and Resistance: 1990's-Present
Monday & Wednesday 1:00pm-2:20pm
3 units
Letter / Credit / No-Credit
Harmony House
Instructor: Daniel Gray-Kontar
In the 1990’s the Spoken Word movement exploded onto the public scene in multiple forms. The decade marked the birth of the Poetry Slam movement, the “Golden Age” of rap, and the re-emergence of Poetry as Performance. In the contemporary moment Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitizer Prize-winning album, “DAMN”, Mahogany Browne’s anthemic poem “Black Girl Magic”, and the rise of online Spoken Word platforms like “Button Poetry” are all evidence of a similar present-day uprising in the centuries-old Spoken Word tradition. This course will combine workshop and seminar approaches to provide students with space to read and examine the Black Spoken Word tradition from the 1990s to the present, and to write and perform their own work.
WINTER 2023 – IDA FEATURED COURSE
AFRICAAM 207: Emergent Thinking: Abolition and Climate Change
Details TBD
4 units
Letter / Credit / No-Credit
Instructor: David Palumbo Liu
Gesturing toward adrienne marie brown's notion of 'emergent strategy,' this course asks us to think in the most radical and imaginative ways possible about two systemic failures that animate what Achille Mbembe has called 'necropolitics' decisions on who lives, and who dies: the police, and climate change. We will look at both the material aspects of police and prison abolition, and climate change and environmental justice, and theoretical approaches to the same. Using works by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, Alex Vitale, Dino Gilio-Whittaker, Candace Fukijane, Ben Ehrenreich, Amitav Ghosh, Ursula LeGuin and Octavia Butler, our texts put the imagination and the political will to work. This seminar course will be capped at 25 enrollments. I expect to offer this course annually.
SPRING 2023 – IDA FACULTY DIRECTOR COURSE
AFRICAAM 200N: Funkentelechy: Technologies, Social Justice and Black Vernacular Cultures
Wednesdays 3:00pm-4:20pm
4-5 units
Letter / Credit / No-Credit
Instructor: Adam Banks
From texts to techne, from artifacts to discourses on science and technology, this course is an examination of how Black people in this society have engaged with the mutually consitutive relationships that endure between humans and technologies. We will focus on these engagements in vernacular cultural spaces, from storytelling traditions to music and move to ways academic and aesthetic movements have imagined these relationships. Finally, we will consider the implications for work with technologies in both school and community contexts for work in the pursuit of social and racial justice.
AFRICAAM 172: Transformative Art Practices for Engaging Community
Wednesdays 4:00pm-5:50pm
1-5 units
Letter / Credit / No-Credit
Instructor: A-lan Hot, amara tabor-smith
Focusing on the work of artists and cultural workers based in Oakland and East Palo Alto, CA we will explore how artists are addressing issues such as housing, healthy food access, education and prison reform as a way toward building healthy and self-sustaining communities. Our explorations will include visits from guest lecturers as well as site visits to surrounding communities to understand how the cultivation of creative relationships provide unprecedented conditions for collective healing and repair. Our course places great importance on ancestral inheritance, embodied histories, and the lived cultural experiences of diverse people in community.
UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
AFRICAAM 200N
Funkentelechy: Technologies, Social Justice and Black Vernacular Cultures (EDUC 314, STS 200N)
From texts to techne, from artifacts to discourses on science and technology, this course is an examination of how Black people in this society have engaged with the mutually consitutive relationships that endure between humans and technologies. We will focus on these engagements in vernacular cultural spaces, from storytelling traditions to music and move to ways academic and aesthetic movements have imagined these relationships. Finally, we will consider the implications for work with technologies in both school and community contexts for work in the pursuit of social and racial justice. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
Banks, A.
AFRICAAM 200X
Honors Thesis and Senior Thesis Seminar
Required for seniors. Weekly colloquia with AAAS Director and Associate Director to assist with refinement of research topic, advisor support, literature review, research, and thesis writing. Readings include foundational and cutting-edge scholarship in the interdisciplinary fields of African and African American studies and comparative race studies. Readings assist students situate their individual research interests and project within the larger. Students may also enroll in AFRICAAM 200Y in Winter and AFRICAAM 200Z in Spring for additional research units (up to 10 units total). UG Reqs: Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Autumn
Wallace, D.
COMPLIT 55N
Black Panther, Hamilton, Díaz, and Other Wondrous Lives (CSRE 55N)
This seminar concerns the design and analysis of imaginary (or constructed) worlds for narratives and media such as films, comics, and literary texts. The seminar's primary goal is to help participants understand the creation of better imaginary worlds - ultimately all our efforts should serve that higher purpose. Some of the things we will consider when taking on the analysis of a new world include: What are its primary features - spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? What is the world's ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? What are the precise strategies that are used by the artist to convey the world to us and us to the world? How are our characters connected to the world? And how are we - the viewer or reader or player - connected to the world? Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit. UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Autumn
Saldivar, J.
CSRE 47Q
Heartfulness: Mindfulness, Compassion, and Responsibility (LIFE 185Q)
We practice mindfulness as a way of enhancing well-being, interacting compassionately with others, and engaging in socially responsible actions as global citizens. Contemplation is integrated with social justice through embodied practice, experiential learning, and creative expression. Class activities and assignments include journaling, mindfulness practices, and expressive arts. We build a sense of community through appreciative intelligence, connected knowing, deep listening and storytelling. UG Reqs: WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 3
Winter
Murphy-Shigematsu, S.
CSRE 55N
Black Panther, Hamilton, Díaz, and Other Wondrous Lives (COMPLIT 55N)
This seminar concerns the design and analysis of imaginary (or constructed) worlds for narratives and media such as films, comics, and literary texts. The seminar's primary goal is to help participants understand the creation of better imaginary worlds - ultimately all our efforts should serve that higher purpose. Some of the things we will consider when taking on the analysis of a new world include: What are its primary features - spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? What is the world's ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? What are the precise strategies that are used by the artist to convey the world to us and us to the world? How are our characters connected to the world? And how are we - the viewer or reader or player - connected to the world? Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit. UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Autumn
Saldivar, J.
CSRE 385
Race, Ethnicity, and Language: Pedagogical Possibilities (AFRICAAM 389C, EDUC 389C)
This seminar explores the intersections of language and race/racism/racialization in the public schooling experiences of students of color. We will briefly trace the historical emergence of the related fields of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, explore how each of these scholarly traditions approaches the study of language, and identify key points of overlap and tension between the two fields before considering recent examples of inter-disciplinary scholarship on language and race in urban schools. Issues to be addressed include language variation and change, language and identity, bilingualism and multilingualism, language ideologies, and classroom discourse. We will pay particular attention to the implications of relevant literature for teaching and learning in urban classrooms. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 4
Winter
Jernigan, H.
DANCE 1
Contemporary Modern I: Liquid Flow
Students in Liquid Flow will participate in a dance and movement class that 1) teaches the fundamentals of dance technique, and 2) addresses the way that you already dance in the world. Through discovering your own DIY movement signature and being aware of one another's dance, motion, and energy in space, we will transform the way that we move and connect to one another to inhabit flow states from the dance studio, into everyday life, and ultimately onto the stage. nAccompanied by contemporary and live music, Students will develop articulation, flexibility and "grace", learn contemporary and classic dance vocabulary, gain freedom dancing with others and mine dance's potential for social transformation and connection. Designed for beginners, we welcome student movers from diverse dance traditions, non-dancers, athletes, and more advanced dancers, who desire fluidity in their daily life, from thought to action. UG Reqs: WAY-CE, way_ce Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 1
An interdisciplinary project-based class to develop dance technique, collaborative choreography, and associated visual and musical arts. We invite dancers, movers, and emerging creators of all styles and backgrounds. The Autumn 22-23 project will focus on creating a "weather simulator" as a vehicle to explore the relationship between weather and human social life. We will use improvisational scores, meteorological data, gaming and machine learning strategies to both become weather and respond to weather. Through this poetic simulator, we will devise a collective way of thinking about our survival and our creative agency. How does weather change our way of being? How is the weather affected by human behavior on earth? In an unpredictable world of climate catastrophes, how can our simulator inspire hope through collective imagination grounded in science? The Chocolate Heads will continue the practice of creating intermedia performances using dance, film projection, technology, and live music. We are seeking interdisciplinary artists in dance, poetry, music, graphics, video and AI. All levels of experience are welcome. WEEK 1: TU 9/27--Introduction to the Project & CHs Band; THU 9/29--1st Audition Workshop. Contact Instructor (Aleta Hayes, ahayes1@stanford.edu) for more information. UG Reqs: WAY-CE Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 2
Autumn
Hayes, A.
EDUC 389C
Race, Ethnicity, and Language: Pedagogical Possibilities (AFRICAAM 389C, CSRE 385)
This seminar explores the intersections of language and race/racism/racialization in the public schooling experiences of students of color. We will briefly trace the historical emergence of the related fields of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, explore how each of these scholarly traditions approaches the study of language, and identify key points of overlap and tension between the two fields before considering recent examples of inter-disciplinary scholarship on language and race in urban schools. Issues to be addressed include language variation and change, language and identity, bilingualism and multilingualism, language ideologies, and classroom discourse. We will pay particular attention to the implications of relevant literature for teaching and learning in urban classrooms. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 4
Winter
Jernigan, H.
COMPLIT 51Q
Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (AMSTUD 51Q, CSRE 51Q)
Explorations of how literature can represent in complex and compelling ways issues of difference--how they appear, are debated, or silenced. Specific attention on learning how to read critically in ways that lead one to appreciate the power of literary texts, and learning to formulate your ideas into arguments. Course is a Sophomore Seminar and satisfies Write2. By application only UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2 Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Winter
Palumbo-Liu, D.
DANCE 128
Roots Modern Experience - Mixed Level (AFRICAAM 128)
In this course students will be introduced to a series of Afro-contemporary dance warm ups and dance combinations that are drawn from a broad range of dance traditions of the African diaspora with a particular focus on Afro Brazilian, Afro Cuban and Haitian dance forms, modern dance techniques, and somatic movement practices. Our study of these dance disciplines will inform the movement vocabulary, technical training, class discussions, and choreography we experience in this course. Students will learn more about the dances and rhythms for the Orishas of Brazil and Cuba, and the Loa of Haiti. Dance combinations will consist of dynamic movement patterns that condition the body for strength, flexibility, endurance, musicality and coordination. Through this approach to our warm ups and class choreography, we will deepen our analysis and understanding of how African diaspora movement traditions are inherently embedded in many expressions of the broadly termed form known as contemporary modern dance. UG Reqs: way_ce Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 1
Autumn
Smith, A.
AMSTUD 91A
Asian American Autobiography/W (ASNAMST 91A, CSRE 91D, ENGLISH 91A)
This is a dual purpose class: a writing workshop in which you will generate autobiographical vignettes/essays as well as a reading seminar featuring prose from a wide range of contemporary Asian-American writers. Some of the many questions we will consider are: What exactly is Asian-American memoir? Are there salient subjects and tropes that define the literature? And in what ways do our writerly interactions both resistant and assimilative with a predominantly non-Asian context in turn recreate that context? We'll be working/experimenting with various modes of telling, including personal essay, the epistolary form, verse, and even fictional scenarios. First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot. UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
Lee, C.
ASNAMST 91A
Asian American Autobiography/W (AMSTUD 91A, CSRE 91D, ENGLISH 91A)
This is a dual purpose class: a writing workshop in which you will generate autobiographical vignettes/essays as well as a reading seminar featuring prose from a wide range of contemporary Asian-American writers. Some of the many questions we will consider are: What exactly is Asian-American memoir? Are there salient subjects and tropes that define the literature? And in what ways do our writerly interactions both resistant and assimilative with a predominantly non-Asian context in turn recreate that context? We'll be working/experimenting with various modes of telling, including personal essay, the epistolary form, verse, and even fictional scenarios. First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot. UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
Lee, C.
DANCE 108
Hip Hop Choreography: Hip Hop Meets Broadway
What happens when Hip Hop meets "Fosse", "Aida", "Dream Girls" and "In the Heights"?nThe most amazing collaboration of Hip Hop styles adapted to some of the most memorable Broadway Productions.nThis class will explore the realm between Hip Hop Dance and the Broadway Stage. Infusing Acting thru dance movement and exploring the Art of Lip Sync thru Hip Hop Dance styles. UG Reqs: WAY-CE, way_ce Grading: Satisfactory/No Credit Units: 1
Spring
Reddick, R.
ENGLISH 91A
Asian American Autobiography/W (AMSTUD 91A, ASNAMST 91A, CSRE 91D)
This is a dual purpose class: a writing workshop in which you will generate autobiographical vignettes/essays as well as a reading seminar featuring prose from a wide range of contemporary Asian-American writers. Some of the many questions we will consider are: What exactly is Asian-American memoir? Are there salient subjects and tropes that define the literature? And in what ways do our writerly interactions both resistant and assimilative with a predominantly non-Asian context in turn recreate that context? We'll be working/experimenting with various modes of telling, including personal essay, the epistolary form, verse, and even fictional scenarios. First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot. UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
Lee, C.
COMPLIT 133A
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, AFRICAST 132, COMPLIT 233A, CSRE 133E, FRENCH 133, JEWISHST 143)
This course provides students with an introductory survey of literature and cinema from Francophone Africa and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will be encouraged to consider the geographical, historical, and political connections between the Maghreb, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This course will help students improve their ability to speak and write in French by introducing students to linguistic and conceptual tools to conduct literary and visual analysis. While analyzing novels and films, students will be exposed to a diverse number of topics such as national and cultural identity, race and class, gender and sexuality, orality and textuality, transnationalism and migration, colonialism and decolonization, history and memory, and the politics of language. Readings include the works of writers and filmmakers such as Aimé Césaire, Albert Memmi, Ousmane Sembène, Leïla Sebbar, Mariama Bâ, Maryse Condé, Dany Laferrière, Mati Diop, and special guest Léonora Miano. Taught in French. Students are encouraged to complete FRENLANG 124 or successfully test above this level through the Language Center. UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 4
Spring
Seck, F.
COMPLIT 348
US-Mexico Border Fictions: Writing La Frontera, Tearing Down the Wall (ILAC 348)
A border is a force of containment that inspires dreams of being overcome, crossed, and cursed; motivates bodies to climb over walls; and threatens physical harm. This graduate seminar places into comparative dialogue a variety of perspectives from Chicana/o and Mexican/Latin American literary studies. Our seminar will examine fiction and cultural productions that range widely, from celebrated Mexican and Chicano/a authors such as Carlos Fuentes (La frontera de cristal), Yuri Herrera (Señales que precederan al fin del mundo), Willivaldo Delgaldillo (La Virgen del Barrio Árabe), Américo Paredes (George Washington Gómez: A Mexico-Texan Novel), Gloria Anzaldúa (Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza), and Sandra Cisneros (Carmelo: Puro Cuento), among others, to musicians whose contributions to border thinking and culture have not yet been fully appreciated such as Herb Albert, Ely Guerra, Los Tigres del Norte, and Café Tacvba. Last but not least, we will screen and analyze Orson Welles' iconic border films Touch of Evil and Rodrigo Dorfman's Los Sueños de Angélica. Proposing a diverse and geographically expansive view of the US-Mexico border literary and cultural studies, this seminar links the work of these authors and musicians to struggles for land and border-crossing rights, anti-imperialist forms of trans-nationalism, and to the decolonial turn in border thinking or pensamineto fronterizo. It forces us to take into account the ways in which shifts in the nature of global relations affect literary production and negative aesthetics especially in our age of (late) post-industrial capitalism. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Winter
Saldivar, J.
COMPLIT 149
The Laboring of Diaspora & Border Literary Cultures (CSRE 149, ILAC 149)
Focus is given to emergent theories of culture and on comparative literary and cultural studies. How do we treat culture as a social force? How do we go about reading the presence of social contexts within cultural texts? How do ethno-racial writers re-imagine the nation as a site with many "cognitive maps" in which the nation-state is not congruent with cultural identity? How do diaspora and border narratives/texts strive for comparative theoretical scope while remaining rooted in specific local histories. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit. UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Winter
Saldivar, J.
CSRE 149
The Laboring of Diaspora & Border Literary Cultures (COMPLIT 149, ILAC 149)
Focus is given to emergent theories of culture and on comparative literary and cultural studies. How do we treat culture as a social force? How do we go about reading the presence of social contexts within cultural texts? How do ethno-racial writers re-imagine the nation as a site with many "cognitive maps" in which the nation-state is not congruent with cultural identity? How do diaspora and border narratives/texts strive for comparative theoretical scope while remaining rooted in specific local histories. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit. UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
What are the roles of sexuality, intimacy, and relationships in my life? How do I tell a compelling story? In this class, you will learn about these topics from the inside out. We will explore various perspectives on sexuality, intimacy, and relationships and then dive into our own stories to discover the richness and vibrancy of our lived experience. Due to the personal nature of the topic, we will emphasize safety, trust, and confidentiality throughout. The class offers the structure and guidance to 1) mine your life for stories, 2) craft the structure and shape of your stories, and 3) perform with presence, authenticity, and connection. Students will be selected from this class to tell their stories in Beyond Sex Ed during NSO 2023. Please fill out this short application for enrollment: bit.ly/Spring2023StoryCraft. UG Reqs: WAY-CE Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 2
Spring
Booth, B.
FEMGEN 314
Performing Identities (TAPS 314)
This course examines claims and counter-claims of identity, a heated political and cultural concept over the past few decades. We will consider the ways in which theories of performance have offered generative discursive frameworks for the study of identities, variously shaped by vectors of race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, nation, ethnicity, among others. How is identity as a social category different from identity as a unique and personal attribute of selfhood? Throughout the course we will focus on the inter-locking ways in which certain dimensions of identity become salient at particular historical conjunctures. In addition, we will consider the complex discourses of identity within transnational and historical frameworks. Readings include Robin Bernstein, Ann Pellegrini, Tavia Nyong'o, Jose Munoz, Michael Taussig, Wendy Brown, Talal Asad, Jasbir Puar, among others. Note: This course satisfies the Concepts of Modernity II requirement in the interdisciplinary graduate program in Modern Thought and Literature. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
Robinson, A.
STS 200N
Funkentelechy: Technologies, Social Justice and Black Vernacular Cultures (AFRICAAM 200N, EDUC 314)
From texts to techne, from artifacts to discourses on science and technology, this course is an examination of how Black people in this society have engaged with the mutually consitutive relationships that endure between humans and technologies. We will focus on these engagements in vernacular cultural spaces, from storytelling traditions to music and move to ways academic and aesthetic movements have imagined these relationships. Finally, we will consider the implications for work with technologies in both school and community contexts for work in the pursuit of social and racial justice. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
What are the roles of sexuality, intimacy, and relationships in my life? How do I tell a compelling story? In this class, you will learn about these topics from the inside out. We will explore various perspectives on sexuality, intimacy, and relationships and then dive into our own stories to discover the richness and vibrancy of our lived experience. Due to the personal nature of the topic, we will emphasize safety, trust, and confidentiality throughout. The class offers the structure and guidance to 1) mine your life for stories, 2) craft the structure and shape of your stories, and 3) perform with presence, authenticity, and connection. Students will be selected from this class to tell their stories in Beyond Sex Ed during NSO 2023. Please fill out this short application for enrollment: bit.ly/Spring2023StoryCraft. UG Reqs: WAY-CE Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 2
Spring
Booth, B.
MUSIC 14N
Women Making Music (FEMGEN 13N)
Preference to freshmen. Women's musical activities across times and cultures; how ideas about gender influence the creation, performance, and perception of music. UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 3
Autumn
Hadlock, H.
FEMGEN 13N
Women Making Music (MUSIC 14N)
Preference to freshmen. Women's musical activities across times and cultures; how ideas about gender influence the creation, performance, and perception of music. UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 3
Autumn
Hadlock, H.
ENGLISH 159
James Baldwin & Twentieth Century Literature (AFRICAAM 159, AMSTUD 159, FEMGEN 159)
Black, gay and gifted, Baldwin was hailed as a "spokesman for the race", although he personally, and controversially, eschewed titles and classifications of all kinds. This course examines his classic novels and essays as well his exciting work across many lesser-examined domains - poetry, music, theatre, sermon, photo-text, children's literature, public media, comedy and artistic collaboration. Placing his work in context with other writers of the 20C (Faulkner, Wright, Morrison) and capitalizing on a resurgence of interest in the writer (NYC just dedicated a year of celebration of Baldwin and there are 2 new journals dedicated to study of Baldwin), the course seeks to capture the power and influence of Baldwin's work during the Civil Rights era as well as his relevance in the "post-race" transnational 21st century, when his prescient questioning of the boundaries of race, sex, love, leadership and country assume new urgency. UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Winter
Osundeko, S.
HISTORY 255D
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (HISTORY 355D)
From Sally Hemings to Barack Obama, this course explores the ways that racial identity has been experienced, represented, and contested throughout American history. Engaging historical, legal, and literary texts and films, this course examines major historical transformations that have shaped our understanding of racial identity. This course also draws on other imaginative modes including autobiography, memoir, photography, and music to consider the ways that racial identity has been represented in American society. Most broadly, this course interrogates the problem of American identity and examines the interplay between racial identity and American identity. UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Spring
Hobbs, A.
ILAC 149
The Laboring of Diaspora & Border Literary Cultures (COMPLIT 149, CSRE 149)
Focus is given to emergent theories of culture and on comparative literary and cultural studies. How do we treat culture as a social force? How do we go about reading the presence of social contexts within cultural texts? How do ethno-racial writers re-imagine the nation as a site with many "cognitive maps" in which the nation-state is not congruent with cultural identity? How do diaspora and border narratives/texts strive for comparative theoretical scope while remaining rooted in specific local histories. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit. UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Winter
Saldivar, J.
HISTORY 355D
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (HISTORY 255D)
From Sally Hemings to Barack Obama, this course explores the ways that racial identity has been experienced, represented, and contested throughout American history. Engaging historical, legal, and literary texts and films, this course examines major historical transformations that have shaped our understanding of racial identity. This course also draws on other imaginative modes including autobiography, memoir, photography, and music to consider the ways that racial identity has been represented in American society. Most broadly, this course interrogates the problem of American identity and examines the interplay between racial identity and American identity. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
