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African American Studies


Dedicated to the histories, cultures, and political movements of black communities across the United States and the wider African Diaspora, African American Studies at Emory University pursues academic excellence and social responsibility through interdisciplinary scholarship, transformational pedagogy, and engagement with local, national, and international communities of African descent. In keeping with these dual commitments, the department changes the focus and broadens the vision of students in their explorations of human experience, history, literature, culture, and politics. The department prepares students for work, life, and the realities and responsibilities of twenty-first century global citizenship through an interdisciplinary approach to liberal arts education. AAS creates learning communities characterized by introductory, advanced, and integrative forms of learning. Students have numerous opportunities to participate in first-year seminars, lectures, writing-intensive courses, undergraduate research experiences, diversity curriculum, and capstone courses and projects. Here, faculty and students work collaboratively in the democratic pursuit of greater understandings of politics, culture, social movements, and society; of knowledge, ethics, evidence, and interpretation; and of the past and present as both means and ends.

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Concentrations

Faculty

Chair
Dianne M. Stewart
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Michelle Gordon
Core

Courses

AAS 100-Level Courses

This course introduces students to the multiple disciplines that comprise the field of African American Studies and the most salient themes and topics that continue to guide scholars' research interests.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Variable topics in African American Studies.


Credit Hours
3
GER
FS
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

AAS 200-Level Courses

Critical and analytic study of jazz idioms from the turn of the century to the present, including the blues, ragtime, Dixieland, swing, bop, and modern jazz. Emphasis on such figures as Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Monk, and Coleman.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HA
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • MUS 215

The course examines the experiences of African Americans from the emergence of the transatlantic slave trade to the end of the Civil War. Emphasizes social and cultural history and interpretation of race, class, and gender.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 238

Examines African American history from 1865 to the present. Emphasizes regional, gender, and class distinction within African American communities, and the ways in which industrial transformations shaped African American life, thought, and resistance.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 239

Examines African American history from 1865 to the present. Emphasizes regional, gender, and class distinction within African American communities, and the ways in which industrial transformations shaped African American life, thought, and resistance.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 239W

This course aims to provide students with an empirical portrait of Black America. Together we will explore the economic, political, and social conditions of Black Americans, with attention to the variety of social science methods used to study them.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • SOC 240

Relations between and within groups, and conflict and cooperation in light of a number of models of social interaction. Application of principles to racial, religious, and ethnic minorities.


Credit Hours
3
GER
SSE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • SOC 247

This course provides an introduction to sociological thinking and concepts using various television shows (and sometimes films) as a springboard. Topics covered include race, class, gender, sexuality, social structure, immigration, intersectionality and political economy.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • SOC 248

This course focuses on dominant themes in political economy, geography, and behavior literature in the post-Civil Rights Movement era. The intersection of race and class at the local level is addressed while exploring issues of institutional discrimination and redistribution.


Credit Hours
3
GER
SS
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

An overview of African-American literature prior to 1900. Students will read and examine writings by major contributors to each period in the genres of fiction (short story and novel) essay, poetry, and narratives of enslavement. Students will write four five-page critical essays.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 261

An overview of African-American literature prior to 1900. Students will read and examine writings by major contributors to each period in the genres of fiction (short story and novel) essay, poetry, and narratives of enslavement. Students will write four five-page critical essays.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HAWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 261W

An overview of African-American literature since 1900. Students will read and examine writings by major contributors to each period in the genres of fiction (short story and novel) essay, poetry, and narratives of enslavement. Students will write and revise four five-page critical essays.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 262

An overview of African-American literature since 1900. Students will read and examine writings by major contributors to each period in the genres of fiction (short story and novel) essay, poetry, and narratives of enslavement. Students will write and revise four five-page critical essays.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HAWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 262W

An exploration and analysis of the struggle for African American equality with an emphasis on the Civil Rights Movement's development, successes, failures and legacy.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 267

An exploration and analysis of the struggle for African American equality with an emphasis on the Civil Rights Movement's development, successes, failures and legacy.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HAWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 267W

This course explores representations of race and gender in American and European art and culture and the strategies and modes of visual representation that African Americans and members of the African Diaspora community deployed to counter derogatory images.


Credit Hours
3
GER
ETHN
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course will trace the trajectory of black resistance in America, from seemingly spontaneous slave revolts, to a few major, highly organized efforts, such as the Civil Rights Movement.


Credit Hours
3
GER
ETHN
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Students in this course will study representations of blacks in major forms of mass media, including newspapers, literature, radio, tv, and film. Students will explore the evolution of those representations and the impact of negative portrayals on the self-images of blacks and society at large.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

The purpose of this course is to examine African American art and some of the historical and cultural considerations that affected the nature of its developments.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ARTHIST 279

Wide range of topics pertinent to the African American experience.


Credit Hours
1 - 4
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Wide range of topics pertinent to the African American experience.


Credit Hours
1 - 5
GER
HSCW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course introduces the lesser known poets and poetry of black women in the United States and abroad; explains the elements of poetry and how to analyze a poem; and discusses the aspects of poetry orally and in writing.


Credit Hours
3
GER
None
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

AAS 300-Level Courses

This course considers the idea of Black Music. What is it? What does it sound like? Who created it? These musical questions are set in the context of an equally complicated web of ideas about race and the relationship between racial expectation and black music/cultural production.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • MUS 303

The 1960s was a decade of turbulence and dramatic social and cultural change. The war in Vietnam, the civil rights and Black Nationalist movements, the so-called sexual revolution, and the popularization of psychedelic drugs all had considerable impact in shaping the musical culture of the day. This course considers the music of the period, the relationships between musical forms, and the shifting relationships between the communities associated with them.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • MUS 304

Considers common roots of spirituals, blues, and jazz, and surveys historical, cultural, social, and denominational factors that have shaped our perspective on the spiritual capacity of jazz. Focus is on the sacred works, biographies, and implicit theological positions of specific jazz masters.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • MUS 305
  • REL 335

Designed to introduce the student to the music associated with the so-called Harlem Renaissance. The course will examine African American and American works, composers, and performers referred to in the famous essays and controversies of this important period.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • MUS 306

Designed to introduce the student to the music associated with the so-called Harlem Renaissance. The course will examine African American and American works, composers, and performers referred to in the famous essays and controversies of this important period.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HAPW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • MUS 306W

This more advanced jazz history course focuses on the various styles and trends in jazz since 1945. The course will look specifically at Bebop, the Post Bop musics such as Hard Bop and Funky Bop, and the Cool School, Third Stream, avant-garde expressions, Fusion, Jazz Rock, and Acid Jazz.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • MUS 307

The purpose of this class is to examine how African American art forms have addressed social issues and affected social change over time. Visual art, literature, music and contemporary media may be discussed.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Development of religion among African Americans; trends and tendencies.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • REL 320R

Development of religion among African Americans; trends and tendencies.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSCW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • REL 320RW

"Explores historical & contemporary notions of love with emphasis on love's powerful & controversial presence/absence in the lives of Black people in the North American context. Readings include religious studies, philosophical, historical, literary, social scientific and neurobiological texts."


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • REL 325

Spiritual transformations involving worship, magic and healing, ritual, and aesthetic performance in Black speech and literature, music, and drama; and spiritual uses of Biblical themes to empower social political movements.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • REL 326

Spiritual transformations involving worship, magic and healing, ritual, and aesthetic performance in Black speech and literature, music, and drama; and spiritual uses of Biblical themes to empower social political movements.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HPWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • REL 326W

Politics of sub-Saharan Africa are examined, with emphasis on the major issues of social and political analysis as well as the African economic predicament and its political implications.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • POLS 334
  • AFS 334

Using insights from cultural anthropology, Black cultural studies, & geography, this course critically explores "Black geographies" to theorize the ways race and space are mutually constituted in our modern world. Students will analyze intersections of race, space, and place in contemporary Atlanta.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ANT 344

Students will explore the various typologies of African American resistance movements, including civil rights liberalism, Black nationalism, Black power, Black feminism, Black conservatism, and LGBT movements in the post-emancipation period.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Comprehensive examination of African American politics and its critical influence upon the American political system. Civil rights and black power movements; the voting rights act and redistricting; African American political participation, attitudes, and governance.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • POLS 346

African Americans created a model of educational excellence during de jure segregated schools whose historical practices link with West Africa and whose implications extend to Finland. The class explores the components of this model and considers their implications for contemporary practice.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course utilizes foundational qualitative research methodology and literature review skills to allow students to explore a variety of class-identified issues challenging the successful engagement of African American students in educational spaces.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Traditional genres of African art with a focus on masks and figure sculpture in West and Central African city-states and chiefdoms from 1500 to European colonization. May be repeated for credit when topic changes, up to a maximum of twelve hours.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ARTHIST 355
  • AFS 355

Major literary traditions of African American writers to 1900.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 358

Major literary traditions of African American writers to 1900.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HAPW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 358W

A topics course dealing with major traditions and issues in African American literature from 1900 to the present. Possible topics include passing and miscegenation, black novels since 1950, Afrofuturism, and black theater.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 359

A topics course dealing with major traditions and issues in African American literature from 1900 to the present. Possible topics include passing and miscegenation, black novels since 1950, Afrofuturism, and black theater.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HPWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENG 359W

Examines a variety of ethnic groups in terms of strengths as well as weaknesses, lodging these characterizations in historical socioeconomic contexts and focusing on the structure and functioning of family life.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • SOC 360

Political, social, economic, and cultural history of sub-Saharan African civilizations, from the rise of the Sudanic empires through the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • AFS 364
  • HIST 364

Political, social, economic, and cultural history of sub-Saharan African civilizations, from the rise of the Sudanic empires through the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • AFS 364W
  • HIST 364W

This course examines the cyclical intersection of politics, education, and race in the history of public school education in Georgia from the Civil War to the present era, considering both the forms of systemic oppression as well as the continuity of community responses.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

An exploration of the complexity and diversity of African American culture in the United States from the perspectives of twentieth century anthropologists. Major themes include: (i) the influence of African culture on the populations of the Caribbean and the United States, (ii) the legacy of slavery throughout the Diaspora, and (iii) the extent to which racism and sexism as systems of inequality affect everyday life in African American communities.


Credit Hours
3
GER
ETHN
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

An exploration of the complexity and diversity of African American culture in the United States from the perspectives of twentieth century anthropologists. Major themes include: (i) the influence of African culture on the populations of the Caribbean and the United States, (ii) the legacy of slavery throughout the Diaspora, and (iii) the extent to which racism and sexism as systems of inequality affect everyday life in African American communities.


Credit Hours
4
GER
CWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

The course examines how constructions of race and gender control the way black women are represented in literature, film and popular culture from the 19th c. to the present. Students will look carefully at American and Western ideologies of black women.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course will examine the relationships of black cultural movements to their historical periods and approach the movements as interdisciplinary phenomena. Movements that have been covered in the past include the Black Arts Movement, the New Negro Renaissance, and the Black Power movement.


Credit Hours
3 - 4
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course is an interdisciplinary survey and analysis of the formation of Atlantic African identities, cultures, and societies in the Western Hemisphere since the 16th century.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • AFS 380
  • HIST 380

This course explores the historical relationship between Blacks and chief executives and the range of presidential attitudes and actions pertaining to the problems of slavery and emancipation, segregation, discrimination, and economic exploitation.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 381

This course explores the ideological and structural foundations of race in American political culture.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 382

An in-depth study of the current historical knowledge of 19th century slavery in the southern United States; and how slavery has been depicted in popular culture, films and literature in the 20th and 21st centuries.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • HIST 384

This course explores one of a wide range of topics pertaining to the African American experience in the fields of human and civil rights, social and literary texts, and the social sciences.


Credit Hours
1 - 4
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course explores one of a wide range of topics pertaining to the African American experience in the fields of human and civil rights, social and literary texts, and the social sciences.


Credit Hours
1 - 5
GER
HAPW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Intermediate level workshop in writing and researching Southern Georgia's Civil Rights history.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSCW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • ENGCW 385RW
  • AMST 387RW
  • HIST 387RW

The "South" has played a central role in our national imagination.This course explores the ways in which certain stereotypes suchas Southern Bell, Mammy, Southern Gentleman, Jezebel, and Uncle Tom remain relevant across the decades.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • AMST 388

Students will explore aspects of African American history and culture in collaboration with a faculty member and complete a research project based upon a mutually agreed upon reading list.


Credit Hours
1 - 12
GER
None
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

AAS 400-Level Courses

This course surveys and analyses the factors shaping the U.S. response in the 20th and 21st centuries to human rights, domestically and globally.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course surveys and analyses the factors shaping the U.S. response in the 20th and 21st centuries to human rights, domestically and globally. Writing requirement.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSCW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course will explore the development of international law, international consciousness and U.S. foreign policy on the two distinct but often related issues of war crimes and genocide during the late 19th and throughout the 20th centuries.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course will explore the development of international law, international consciousness and U.S. foreign policy on the two distinct but often related issues of war crimes and genocide during the late 19th and throughout the 20th centuries.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSCW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Course examines Black women's participation in American politics as citizens, voters, activists, and elites. Topics include: suffrage and modern feminism; the role of gender in shaping public opinion and electoral behavior; activities within the political parties; and public policy.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course will examine the ways in which the twentieth-century black Civil Rights Movement and the movement for LGBT rights have intersected through the activism of black LGBT activists in the city of Atlanta. Students will conduct ground-breaking research in Atlanta's black LGBT community.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSCE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course will examine the ways in which the twentieth-century black Civil Rights Movement and the movement for LGBT rights have intersected through the activism of black LGBT activists in the city of Atlanta. Students will conduct ground-breaking research in Atlanta's black LGBT community .


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSWE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Course focuses on the works of 19th and 20th century black women writers. Writers vary but may include the works of Harriet Jacobs,Pauline Hopkins, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAPE
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This course explores the life, literary work, and legacy of novelist Alice Walker.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • WGS 483

This course explores the life, literary work, and legacy of novelist Alice Walker.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HAPW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
  • WGS 483W


Credit Hours
3
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This advanced course explores one of a wide range of topics pertaining to the African American experience in the fields of human and civil rights, social and literary texts, and the social sciences.


Credit Hours
1 - 4
GER
HAP
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

This advanced course explores one of a wide range of topics pertaining to the African American experience in the fields of human and civil rights, social and literary texts, and the social sciences.


Credit Hours
1 - 5
GER
HAPW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Spring. Multidisciplinary in nature, the readings of the senior seminar reflect the centrality of the historical and cultural contributions of African Americans to American history and culture.


Credit Hours
3
GER
HSC
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Spring. Multidisciplinary in nature, the readings of the senior seminar reflect the centrality of the historical and cultural contributions of African Americans to American history and culture.


Credit Hours
4
GER
HSCW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Fall semester. Variable credit with a maximum credit of eight hours. Prerequisite: approval of adviser and the director of undergraduate studies. Open to majors and minors writing honors thesis.Includes writing proposal for thesis requirement.


Credit Hours
1 - 8
GER
XA
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None

Variable credit with a maximum credit of eight hours. Prerequisite: approval of adviser and the director of undergraduate studies. Open to majors and minors writing honors thesis. Writing requirement.


Credit Hours
1 - 8
GER
CW
Requisites
None
Cross-Listed
None