Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Alternative Futurisms and Radical Worldbuilding
Instructor: Professor Adam Banks and Grace Toléqué
1-4 units (variable units)
Wednesdays 3:30-6:20pm
Letter Grade + Credit / No Credit
Presented by IDA the Institute for Diversity in the Arts and Faculty Director Adam Banks. In this course we will explore science fiction and speculative fiction as readers, writers, creators, and organizers to learn how artists engage with futurtist thinking to reimagine and build better worlds in the present. Together we will draw from scholarship across Indigenous, Latinx, Pasifica, Arab, African and Afro futurisms; as well as science fiction and other creative traditions to imagine and build better worlds rooted in liberation and solidarity. Students will explore the groundbreaking television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as one example of alternative futurisms, and will be joined by a special visiting artist and actor from the show’s original cast. Visits by guest artists from across genres will round out this year’s IDA Spring Course. (AFRICAAM 197 CSRE 194DS9, PWR 194DS9)
Conjure Art 2.0: Ritual Dance Theater in the Making
Instructor: amara tabor-smith
2 Units
TU/THU 11:30am-1:20pm Roble 115
In this course students will engage in the early creative process for a new ritual dance-theater work created by tabor-smith. This (as of yet) untitled piece will utilize movement, text, song and guided rituals, to explore the question of how the myths, parables and oracle practices found in many cultures throughout the world might hold the anecdotes for the environmental and social challenges we face in this current moment in time. Students will be introduced to tabor-smith’s Conjure Art making praxis through this early creative process which will culminate in a studio performance of the work in progress material at the end of quarter. (DANCE 161J)
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.
UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
AFRICAAM 200N
Funkentelechy: Technologies, Social Justice and Black Vernacular Cultures (CSRE 314, 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
Cannon, B.
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, Diaz, 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 55N
Black Panther, Hamilton, Diaz, 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: Black Digital Cultures from BlackPlanet to AI (AFRICAAM 389C, EDUC 389C, PWR 194AJB)
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
Banks, A.
DANCE 1
Contemporary Modern I: Liquid Flow
Students in Liquid Flow will participate in a dance and movement class that teaches the fundamentals of dance technique and addresses the way we already dance through the world. By discovering our own movement signatures, and becoming aware of other people's dance, motion, and energy in space, we will transform the way we inhabit flow states, from the dance studio, into everyday life, and ultimately onto the stage. Accompanied by a live DJ, students will develop technique, articulation, flexibility, and grace, to gain freedom while dancing, and mine dance's potential for social transformation and connection. We will draw from various movement traditions and practices, including contemporary modern, ballet, lyrical, Tai chi and yoga, with opportunities to remix other styles. Designed for all levels, we welcome beginners, student movers from diverse dance traditions, athletes, and advanced dancers, who desire more fluidity in their lives. UG Reqs: WAY-CE, way_ce Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 1
The Chocolate Heads Movement Band will engage in an interdisciplinary project-based course to develop collaborative choreography and installation art with visual and musical components. How can we attune our senses to perceive the subtleties of our surroundings? How can we learn to perceive the magic hiding in plain sight? The Autumn '23-'24 project will make use of remixing strategies, deep listening practices, and outdoor exploration to animate these questions in a multisensorial performance piece. We will cultivate an imaginary garden full of wild, surprising, and mysterious entities. Taking inspiration from landscape architecture, textiles, lighting, and projection design, we will bring the outside world in to create a dance and performance ecology. The course will feature collaborations with guest scientists, artists, and somatic practitioners. Our garden is open to all forms of creative expression and all levels of experience; we invite dancers, movers, and emerging creators of all styles and backgrounds. WEEK 1: TU 9/26--Introduction to the Project & CHs Band; THU 9/28--1st Audition Workshop. Contact Aleta Hayes (ahayes1@stanford.edu) for more information. UG Reqs: WAY-CE Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 2
Autumn
Hayes, A.
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
Spring
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.
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"?The most amazing collaboration of Hip Hop styles adapted to some of the most memorable Broadway Productions.This 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.
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 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. Taught in English. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Winter
Saldivar, J.
ASNAMST 31N
Behind the Big Drums: Exploring Taiko (MUSIC 31N)
Preference to Freshman. Since 1992 generations of Stanford students have heard, seen, and felt the power of taiko, big Japanese drums, at Admit Weekend, NSO, or Baccalaureate. Taiko is a relative newcomer to the American music scene. The contemporary ensemble drumming form, or kumidaiko, developed in Japan in the 1950s. The first North American taiko groups emerged from the Japanese American community shortly after and coincided with increased Asian American activism. In the intervening years, taiko has spread into communities in the UK, Europe, Australia, and South America. What drives the power of these drums? In this course, we explore the musical, cultural, historical, and political perspectives of taiko through readings and discussion, conversations with taiko artists, and learn the fundamentals of playing. With the taiko as our focal point, we find intersections of Japanese music, Japanese American history, and Asian American activism, and explore relations between performance, cultural expression, community, and identity. UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 3
Spring
Uyechi, L.
DANCE 160J
Conjure Art 101: Performances of Ritual, Spirituality and Decolonial Black Feminist Magic (CSRE 160J)
Conjure Art is a movement and embodied practice course looking at the work and techniques of artists of color who utilize spirituality and ritual practices in their art making and performance work to evoke social change. In this course we will discuss the work of artists who bring spiritual ritual in their art making while addressing issues of spiritual accountability and cultural appropriation. Throughout the quarter we will welcome guest artists who make work along these lines, while exploring movement, writing, singing and visual art making. This class will culminate in a performance ritual co-created by students and instructor. UG Reqs: WAY-CE Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 2
Autumn
Smith, A.
EDUC 389A
Race, Ethnicity, and Language: Racial, Ethnic, and Linguistic Formations (ANTHRO 320A, CSRE 389A, LINGUIST 253, SYMSYS 389A)
Language, as a cultural resource for shaping our identities, is central to the concepts of race and ethnicity. This seminar explores the linguistic construction of race and ethnicity across a wide variety of contexts and communities. We begin with an examination of the concepts of race and ethnicity and what it means to be "doing race," both as scholarship and as part of our everyday lives. Throughout the course, we will take a comparative perspective and highlight how different racial/ethnic formations (Asian, Black, Latino, Native American, White, etc.) participate in similar, yet different, ways of drawing racial and ethnic distinctions. The seminar will draw heavily on scholarship in (linguistic) anthropology, sociolinguistics and education. We will explore how we talk and don't talk about race, how we both position ourselves and are positioned by others, how the way we talk can have real consequences on the trajectory of our lives, and how, despite this, we all participate in maintaining racial and ethnic hierarchies and inequality more generally, particularly in schools. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Autumn
Rosa, J.
CSRE 389A
Race, Ethnicity, and Language: Racial, Ethnic, and Linguistic Formations (ANTHRO 320A, EDUC 389A, LINGUIST 253, SYMSYS 389A)
Language, as a cultural resource for shaping our identities, is central to the concepts of race and ethnicity. This seminar explores the linguistic construction of race and ethnicity across a wide variety of contexts and communities. We begin with an examination of the concepts of race and ethnicity and what it means to be "doing race," both as scholarship and as part of our everyday lives. Throughout the course, we will take a comparative perspective and highlight how different racial/ethnic formations (Asian, Black, Latino, Native American, White, etc.) participate in similar, yet different, ways of drawing racial and ethnic distinctions. The seminar will draw heavily on scholarship in (linguistic) anthropology, sociolinguistics and education. We will explore how we talk and don't talk about race, how we both position ourselves and are positioned by others, how the way we talk can have real consequences on the trajectory of our lives, and how, despite this, we all participate in maintaining racial and ethnic hierarchies and inequality more generally, particularly in schools. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Autumn
Rosa, J.
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.
AMSTUD 255D
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (AFRICAAM 255, CSRE 255D, HISTORY 255D, HISTORY 355D)
From Sally Hemings to Michelle Obama and Beyonce, 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 culture. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Spring
Hobbs, A.
CSRE 255D
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (AFRICAAM 255, AMSTUD 255D, HISTORY 255D, HISTORY 355D)
From Sally Hemings to Michelle Obama and Beyonce, 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 culture. UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Spring
Hobbs, A.
EDUC 389C
Race, Ethnicity, and Language: Black Digital Cultures from BlackPlanet to AI (AFRICAAM 389C, CSRE 385, PWR 194AJB)
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
What are the roles of sex, 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 2024. Please fill out this short application for enrollment: bit.ly/Spring2024StoryCraft. 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. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Spring
Brody, J.
STS 200N
Funkentelechy: Technologies, Social Justice and Black Vernacular Cultures (AFRICAAM 200N, CSRE 314, 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 sex, 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 2024. Please fill out this short application for enrollment: bit.ly/Spring2024StoryCraft. UG Reqs: WAY-CE Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 2
Spring
Booth, B.
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.
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: 3
Spring
Holbrook, M.
HISTORY 255D
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (AFRICAAM 255, AMSTUD 255D, CSRE 255D, HISTORY 355D)
From Sally Hemings to Michelle Obama and Beyonce, 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 culture. UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Spring
Hobbs, A.
HISTORY 355D
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (AFRICAAM 255, AMSTUD 255D, CSRE 255D, HISTORY 255D)
From Sally Hemings to Michelle Obama and Beyonce, 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 culture. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Spring
Hobbs, A.
ILAC 348
US-Mexico Border Fictions: Writing La Frontera, Tearing Down the Wall (COMPLIT 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 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. Taught in English. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5
Winter
Saldivar, J.
MUSIC 4SI
Interactive Introduction to North American Taiko
Taught by Stanford Taiko members. Techniques and history. No experience necessary. May be repeated for credit. This course was initiated by Mitchell Fukumoto and Stanford Taiko. UG Reqs: Grading: Satisfactory/No Credit Units: 1
Winter
Uyechi, L.
MUSIC 31N
Behind the Big Drums: Exploring Taiko (ASNAMST 31N)
Preference to Freshman. Since 1992 generations of Stanford students have heard, seen, and felt the power of taiko, big Japanese drums, at Admit Weekend, NSO, or Baccalaureate. Taiko is a relative newcomer to the American music scene. The contemporary ensemble drumming form, or kumidaiko, developed in Japan in the 1950s. The first North American taiko groups emerged from the Japanese American community shortly after and coincided with increased Asian American activism. In the intervening years, taiko has spread into communities in the UK, Europe, Australia, and South America. What drives the power of these drums? In this course, we explore the musical, cultural, historical, and political perspectives of taiko through readings and discussion, conversations with taiko artists, and learn the fundamentals of playing. With the taiko as our focal point, we find intersections of Japanese music, Japanese American history, and Asian American activism, and explore relations between performance, cultural expression, community, and identity. UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 3
Spring
Uyechi, L.
LINGUIST 253
Race, Ethnicity, and Language: Racial, Ethnic, and Linguistic Formations (ANTHRO 320A, CSRE 389A, EDUC 389A, SYMSYS 389A)
Language, as a cultural resource for shaping our identities, is central to the concepts of race and ethnicity. This seminar explores the linguistic construction of race and ethnicity across a wide variety of contexts and communities. We begin with an examination of the concepts of race and ethnicity and what it means to be "doing race," both as scholarship and as part of our everyday lives. Throughout the course, we will take a comparative perspective and highlight how different racial/ethnic formations (Asian, Black, Latino, Native American, White, etc.) participate in similar, yet different, ways of drawing racial and ethnic distinctions. The seminar will draw heavily on scholarship in (linguistic) anthropology, sociolinguistics and education. We will explore how we talk and don't talk about race, how we both position ourselves and are positioned by others, how the way we talk can have real consequences on the trajectory of our lives, and how, despite this, we all participate in maintaining racial and ethnic hierarchies and inequality more generally, particularly in schools. UG Reqs: Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 5
Autumn
Rosa, J.
TAPS 154G
Black Magic: Ethnicity, Race, and Identity in Performance Cultures (AFRICAAM 154G, AFRICAAM 254G, CSRE 154D, FEMGEN 154G, TAPS 354G)
In 2013, CaShawn Thompson devised a Twitter hashtag, #blackgirlmagic, to celebrate the beauty and intelligence of black women. Twitter users quickly adopted the slogan, using the hashtag to celebrate everyday moments of beauty, accomplishment, and magic. The slogan offered a contemporary iteration of an historical alignment: namely, the concept of "magic" with both Black people as well as "blackness." This course explores the legacy of Black magic--and black magic--through performance texts including plays, poetry, films, and novels. We will investigate the creation of magical worlds, the discursive alignment of magic with blackness, and the contemporary manifestation of a historical phenomenon. We will cover, through lecture and discussion, the history of black magic representation as well as the relationship between magic and religion. Our goal will be to understand the impact and history of discursive alignments: what relationship does "black magic" have to and for "black bodies"? How do we understand a history of performance practice as being caught up in complicated legacies of suspicion, celebration, self-definition? The course will give participants a grounding in black performance texts, plays, and theoretical writings. *This course will also satisfy the TAPS department WIM requirement.* UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit Units: 4
Robinson, A.
ENGLISH 152G
Harlem Renaissance (AFRICAAM 152G, AMSTUD 152G)
Examination of the explosion of African American artistic expression during 1920s and 30s New York known as the Harlem Renaissance. Amiri Baraka once referred to the Renaissance as a kind of "vicious Modernism", as a "BangClash", that impacted and was impacted by political, cultural and aesthetic changes not only in the U.S. but Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Focus on the literature, graphic arts, and the music of the era in this global context. UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP) Units: 5