Fall 2024 Course Offering

Introduction Courses

BL ST 1: "Intro- African American Studies" with Prof. Lyons

T R 11:00am-12:15pm

Course Description: Explores historical and current social conditions of Black people in the United States. Topic include the following: origins of Black Studies, chattel slavery and resistance, reconstruction, Jim Crow segergation, Harlem Renaissance, Black Naionalism, structural racism and anti-Blackness, Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, racial wealth gap, critical race theory and Neo-liberalism, carcerality and the prison industrial complex, white privilege and rage, and the intersection of race, gender, class and sexuality in shaping Black identity and life chances.

 

BL ST 2 : "Black globalization" with Prof. Alves

M W 8:00am-9:15am

Course Description: Explains the process of Globalization from the XV cenutry- when the very concpet of race appeared in discourse- to the present thorugh the lenses of the Black experience.The texts, film and lecture presentations counter the hisoriographical erasure of people of African descent in the making of the Moden World, foregrounds the critical role that Black subject played in both the Old and New Wolrds and postulates that Globalization could not have ever taken place without their contributions. 

 

BL ST 7: "Intro Caribbean Studies" with Prof. Tinsley

M W: 12:30pm- 1:45pm

Course Description: A survey of the culture and society of the Caribbean. After surveying Amerindian communities and examining the impact of the Atlantic slave trade, focus will be on slavery, emancipation, African and Creole cultures, and the issues accompanying an independent nationhood status.

 

Upper Division Courses

BL ST 100: "African/ U.S Policy" with Prof. McAuley

T R 12:30pm- 1:45pm

Course Description: Post-Wolrd War II Africa and United States foregin policy. Special attention is devoted to Southern Africa and parallels between social movements in that part of the world and the United States Civil Rights Movement

 

BL ST 102: "Black Radicals and the Radical tradition"

T R 3:30pm- 4:45pm

Course Description: This course examines the tradition of radical thought and the relevance of this though to the needs and interests of the Black Community.

 

BL ST 106: Women and Politics of the Body with Prof. Strings

T R 2:00pm- 3:15pm

Course Description: Examines the relationship between race and gender in the construction of bodily politics that include perceptions of beauty and femininity. In understanding how race and gender matter in conceptualizations of beauty, this course centers Black womens bodies as important sites of resistance

 

BL ST 129: Black Cities- Spatial Politics of Violence, Power and Resistance

M W 3:30pm-4:45pm

Course Description: Examines spatial dynamics of anti-Blackness and spatial politics of resistance in relational and comparative geographical perspectives. Study of colonial histories of spatial violence and current patterns of residential segergation, homelessness, and police brutality, as well as the struggle for urban citizenship in societies of the African Diaspora. The goal of the course is threefold: a.)it analyzes institutional policies and mundane practices that produce cityscapes as anti-Black , b) it interrogates the Marxist- oriented framework on the "thr right to the city " and c) it gives cisibility to Black gendered spatial praxes that challenge exclusionary city politics and their attending geographies of anti-Blackness. 

 

Graduate Courses: 

BL ST 208: Issues in Black Studies Epistemology and Pedagogy with Prof. Lyons

R: 2:00pm-4:50pm

Course Description: Introduces students to Black Studies as a field with its own logic and history of inquiry. Students gain a methodology for creating pardaigms, organizing and interpreting data, and constructing knowledge through research and teaching in Black Studies.

 

Spring 2024 Course Offering 

Introduction Courses

BL ST 2 " Black Globalization" with Professor Alves

T R 12:30pm-1:45pm 

Course description: Explains the process of Globalization from the XV Century- when the very concept of race appeared in discourse- to the present through the lenses of the Black experienc. The texts, film and lecture presentations counter the historiographical erasure of peole of African descent in the making of the Modern World, foregrounds the critical role that Black subject played in both the Old and New world and postulates that Globalization could not have ever taken plave without their contributions

 

Upper Division 

BL ST 100 "African / U.S Pollicy" with Professor McAuley 

 TR 12:30pm-1:45pm

Course description: Post world war II Africa and United States foregin policy. Special attention is devoted to Southern Africa and parallels between social movements in that part of the world and the United States civil rights movement

 

BL ST 104 "Black Marxism" with Professor Mcauley

T R 3:30pm- 4:45pm 

Course description: A theoretical explication and critique of the diverse Marxian analyses developed in Africa and the African Diaspora form the early 20th century. The course traces and analyzes the divergences of Black Marxisms form Western Marxism. 

 

BL ST "Womenand Politics of the Body" with Professor Banks

M W 11am-12:15pm

Course description:Examines the relationship between race and gender in the construction of bodily politics that include perceptions of beauty and feminity. In understanding how race and gender mater in conceptualizations of beauty, this course centers Black women's bodies as important sites of resistance. 

 

BL ST 127 "Black Women Writers" with Professor Coffey Edison

M W 11am-12:15pm

Course description: Examines the significance of race, class, gender, sexuality and place as experienced and articulated in the literature of Black women of the African diaspora

 

BL ST 137E "Black Families" with Professor Burnett 

T R 2pm-3:15pm 

Course description: Sociological overview of the experiences of Black families in the United States form enslavement to more contemporary eras. Sociological analysis of the changing historical significance of Black families in the United States will be present.

 

BL ST 143 " Hip- Hop" with Professsor Webber 

M W 5:00pm-6:15pm 

Course description: Designed to introduce students to the history and contempoary infleucne of hip hop, includiing rap music, break dancing, graffiti, bboying, dijing, fashion, global marketing, etc. Traces the history of hip hop from its early emergence in the Bronx in the 1970s to its emergence as the global soundtrack of the 21st century. Students will also study the particular urban geographies of hip hop culture and its critique of social, political, and economic conditions of Black life.

 

BL ST 152 " Music of the African Diaspora"  with Professor Akudinobi

T R 8:00am- 9:15am

Course description: A survey of select African derived musical traditions from the Caribbean: North and South Americ, and Africa

 

BL ST 169 CR " African- American History" with Professor Banks

M W 3:30pm- 4:45pm

Cours description: influence/ experience of Africans/ African-Americans in United States history. Tweniteth-Century New South, urban migration and desegergation

 

BL ST 179 "Black Film Production" with Professor Akudinobi

T R 9:30am- 10:45am

Course description: This course is designed to teach students Black film history as a production workshop. Students will learn the technologies used by Black filmmakers from Oscar Micheaux to Ava DuVemay. The class will write and produce scenes on iMovie reflecting the styles and techniques of a particular period in Black film production 

 

BL ST 180 "Capstone Seminar for Minors"  with Professor Strings

M W 12:30pm- 1:45pm 

Course description: Capstone seminar for minor designed to strengthen students' reasoning, writing and research skills =, as well as highlight how the Black Students minor will enhance their major degrees 

 

BL ST 190C " Senior thesis Seminar in Black Studies " with Professor Lyons

T R 11:00am - 12:15pm 

Course descritpion: focus on continuing analysis and data discussion and completing the senior thesis

 

BL ST 190CH " Honors Thesis Seminar in Black Studies" with Professor Lyons 

T R 11:00am- 12:15pm 

Course description: Focus on continuing analysis and data discussio, completing the senior honors thesis, and preparing to present an academic paper at the departmental Spring Colloquim for earning distinction ( honors) in the major. 

Introduction Courses

BL ST 2 " Black Globalization" with Professor McAuley

TR 12:30pm-1:45pm 

Course description: Explains the process of Globalization from the XV Century- when the very concept of race appeared in discourse- to the present through the lenses of the Black experienc. The texts, film and lecture presentations counter the historiographical erasure of peole of African descent in the making of the Modern World, foregrounds the critical role that Black subject played in both the Old and New world and postulates that Globalization could not have ever taken plave without their contributions

BL ST 3: " Introduction to African Studies" with Professor Akudinobi

TR 9:30am- 10:45am 

Course description: A survey of the subject matter, themes and methods of African Studies. While briefly surveying the prehisoty and early states of Africa. The course focuses on the cultre and socitey of the colonial and independence eras. 

 

BL ST 7: " Introduction to Caribbean Studies" with Professor Strongman

MW 12:30pm- 1:45pm 

Course description: A survey of the culture and society of the Caribbean. After surveying Amerindian communities and examining the impact of the Atlantic slave trade, focus will be on slavery emancipation, African and Creole cultures and the issues accompanying an independent nationhood status.

 

Upper Division Courses

BL ST 109: " Geopolitics of Race" with Professor Alves

MW: 3:30pm- 4:45pm 

Course description: Examines the historical and contemporary role of the United States foregin policy in the constitution of domestic and global racial orders. Special attention is devoted to the US intervention in Africa and Latin America and parallels between Pan African social movements in these arts f the world and the struggle for Black liberation in the U.S. Analysis of current foregin policies oriented by the " war on terror" and energy security provides the context for exploring the continuous re-making of imperial geographies of anti-Blackness and white supremacy. 

 

BL ST 117: "Slavery and Modernity" with Professor McAuley

TR 3:30pm- 4:45pm

Course description: An interdisciplinary examination of Black slavery as both a historical event and an enduring condition. The course highlights the foundational role of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade in the making of European modernity, the white subject of rights and the black dispossessed nonbeing, liberal democracy, and contemporary regimes of black captivities. Special focus is given to the political and economic history of the United States, the Caribbean and Brazil as slavocracies and to the incomplete project of emancipation and to the incomplete project of emancipation that renders Black citizenship at best elusive.

 

BL ST 122: "Black Youth, Development and Critical Education Studies" 

MW 2:00pm- 3:15pm

Course description: Explores the effect of social, political, and economic forces on the history of Black education. Examines ways of challending the impacts of race, class, gender and language in the educational achievement of Black children. Focuses on anti-bias/ multicultural curricula in urban settings. Fieldwork required.

 

BL ST 124: " Housing, Inheritance and Race"

MW 9:30am- 10:45am

Course description: Housing discrimination systematically skews opportunities and life chances in the United States across racial lines. This course examines the origins and evolution of fair housing laws, and the role that housing plays in asset accumulation, inheritance and wealth.

 

BL ST 125 " Queer Black Studies" 

TR 3:30pm- 4:45pm 

Course description: An exploration of the intersection of Black Studies and Queer Studies from various theoretical, literary, historical, and multi-media prespectives. Cultural producers studied include: Audre Lorde, Marlon Riggs, Bayard Rustin and Brude Nugent.

 

BL ST 131 " Race and Public Policy"

TR 2:00pm-3:15pm

Course description: Provides a theoretical overview of the role of race and ethnicity in local, national, and international public policy debates. Examines critical case studies of several policies: regional development, social welfare, environment, criminal justice, etc. Student policy projects with fieldwork component included

 

BLST 133 " Gender and Sexuality in Black Studies" 

TR 5:00pm-6:15pm

Course description: Examines the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, and class in creating disadvantage and advantage. In examining how racism, sexism, and heterosexim shape Black life chances in a 21st century context, this course focuses on systems of oppression that exist within and outside Black communites.

 

BL ST 136 "Black Feminist Thought" with Professor Lyons

MW 3:30pm- 4:45pm

Course description: Examines past and contemporary scholarship in Black feminist thought within mainstream feminist theory and field of Black Studies, the course presents a critical examination of the theoretical and practical contributions of Black feminist scholars.

 

BL ST 146 " Topic in Preformance Practices, Histories and Genres" with Professor Strongman

MW 3:30pm-4:45pm 

Course description: Practices, traditions, histories, methodologies, and genres of Black performance as chosen by instructor. Radical traditions might focus on plays, spoken word, or oratory, a methodological topic might focus on ethnography. A genre might be dance, a hisotry, Shakespeare or burlesque 

 

BL ST 153 " Black Feminism and Popular Music" with Professor Tinsley

TR 2:00pm- 3:15pm

Course description: This course engages the music of Black Women recording artists as popular, accessible expressions of African American feminisms that reach worldwide audiences. Beginning with close analysis of women artists' songs and videos, we read their oeuvre in conversation with Black feminist theoretical works. The course provides students with an introduction to media studies methodology as well as Black feminist theory, and to challenge us to close the gap between popular and academic expression of Black Women's concerns

 

BL ST 155 "Dreams and Conflict: Black Visual Culture" 

MW 3:30pm- 4:45pm 

Course description: Enables studnets to think critically about how visual politics have shaped the landscape of race, how visual arts are related to other expressions of culture, such as music, theatre, and dance, and how Black artists have embodied and contested regimes of racial knowledge anchored in the visualization of Blackness

 

BL ST 171 "Africa in Flim" with Professor Akudinobi

TR 8:00am- 9:15am

Course description: Explores, with examples from dominant Hollywood cinema and African cinema, what the sample films show about the relationship between ideology and representation, especially the reference points through which Africa functions as a site of complex and conflicting meanings

BL ST 174 " From Plantations to Prisons: Policing, Carcerality, and Abolition"  with Professor Alves

MW 5:00pm- 6:15pm 

Course description: Provides a critical perspective on current patterns of policing and mass incarceration in the United States and beyond. The course examines the historical roots and ideological justifications for police and prison and how notions of crime and order shape the ways we understand and justify anti-Black policing policies. Focuses on fighting-crime strategies and their deepening of social vulnerabilites along gender, race sexuality and class lines. Engages with abolitionist responses to neoliberal carcerality and its prison industrial complex.

 

 

Fall 2023 Course Offering 

Introduction Courses 

BL ST 1 " Introduction to African American Studies" with Professor Banks 

MW 12:30pm-1:45pm

Course description: Explores historicalamd current social conditions of black people in the United States. Topics include the following: origins of Black Studies, chattel slavery and resistance, Reconstruction, Jim crow segergation; Harlem renaissance: Black Nationalism: structural racism and anti- Blackness; Civil Rights and Black Power Movements: racial wealth gap; critical race theory and Neo-liberalism: carcerality and the prison industrial complex; white privilege and rage; and the intersection of race, gender, class and sexulaity in shaping Black identity and life chances. 

 

BL ST 3 " Introduction to African Studies" with Professor Akudinobi

TR 9:30am-10:45am

Course description: A survey of the subject matter, themes and methods of African Studies. While briefly surveying the prehistory and early states of Africa, the course focuses on teh culture and socitey of the colonial and independence eras 

 

BL ST 33 " African Literatures" with Professor Strongman

TR 2:00pm-3:15pm

Course description:An introduction to the diverse literaray tradtions of Africa through an examination of selected works. Regional focus on North, West, East, Central and South Africa varies

 

Bl ST 49A " Surveyr African History" with Professor Ware

TR 8:00am-9:15am

Course description: Prehistory to c. 1800. History 49-A-B-C is a general survey course designed to introduce students to major themes in African history/ The course focuses on organization of production, state formation, African civilizations and identities, science and technology, beliefs and knowledge systems, Africas interaction with the wolrd economy, such as through enslavement and slaves trades. Weekly discussion sections are an important deature of this course, enabling students to develop and expand upon material presnted during lecture

 

Upper Division courses 

 

BL ST 126 " Comparative Black Literatures" with Professor Strongman

TR 11:00am-12:15pm 

Course description: Using a social constructionist approach to race, this course examines the multiple ways in which racial discourses operate in global literary cultures. It emphasizes  that blackness need not be a homogenous concept in order to continue to be a powerful agent in the postmodern world

 

BL ST 127 " Black Women Writers" with Professor. Brown 

TR 12:30pm-1:45pm

Course description: EExamines the significance or race, class, gender sexulaity and place as experienced and articulated in the literature of Black women of the African disapora

 

BL ST 147 PL " Prefromance of Literature" TBA

MW 9:30am-10:45am 

Course description: Explores relationships between performances of idenity, literary analysis and the staging of literature. Students conceptualize the performance of idenity, space and text through original dramatization of literary materials that they prepare, stage and embody

 

BL ST 154 " Enviornment Race & Justice" with Professor. Day 

WF 11:00am-12:15pm

Course description This course investigates environmental injustices that some people especially poorer people, bear a disproportionate burden of living in communities with enviornmental hazards and environemtal racism that a high coincidence exists between the location of toxic waste sites and Black and Brown communities, even when they are predominantly middle class. 

 

BL ST 162 " African Cinema" with Professor. Akudinobi 

TR 8:00sm-9:15am

W 5:00pm-7:00pm

Course description: Critical perspective on African cinema form its ineption to the present. production contexts, aesthetic narrative strategies, ideological/ representational concerns are examined along with issues of authorship, culture, gender, identity, post coloniality. 

BL ST 170 " African American Cinema" Professor Brown

TR 3:30pm-4:45pm 

Course description: An examination of the representation of African- Americans in the Hollywood feature film from 1915 to the Present. The course explores the relationship between screen icons and the racial attitudes held by Black and White Americans

BL ST  190A " Senior/ Honors Thesis" with Professor Banks

MW 3:30pm- 4:45pm 

Course description:g Focus on producing a research proposal by identifying a research topic and research question, argumentation, methods and methodology, and literature search and review

 

Summer 2023 Course Offering

Introduction Courses

BLST 2 " Black Globalization " with Professor Alves 

WRF 11:00am-12:20pm

Course description: Explains the process of Globalization from the XV century- when the very concept of race appeared in discourse- to the present through the lenses of the Black experience. The texts, films and lecture presentations counter the historiographical erasure of people of African descent in the making of the Modern World, foregrouds the critical role that Blacks subject played in both the Olde and New Worlds and postualtes that Globalization could not have ever taken place without their contributions.

BLST 3 " Introduction to African Studies"  with Professor Akudinobi 

MTW 8:00am- 9:20am

Course description: A survey of the Subject matter, themes and methods of African Studies. While briefly surveying the prehistory and early states of Africa, the course focuses on the culture and socitey of the colonial and independence eras 

 

Upper Division Courses

 

BL ST 124 " House Inheritance, Race" with Professor Arguera

MTW 12:30pm-1:50pm

Course description: Housing Discrimination systematically skews opportunites and life chances in the United States across racial lines, this course examines the origins and evolution of fair housing laws, and the role that housing plays in asset accumulation, inheritance and wealth

BLST 126 " Comparitive Black Literature" with Professor Akudinobi

MTW 9:30am-10:50am

Course description: f Using a social constructionist approach to race, this course examines the multiple ways in which racial discourses operate in global literary cultures. It emphasizes the blackness need not be a homogenous concept in  order to continue to be a powerful agent in the postmodern world. 

BLST 127 " Black Women writers " with Professor. Coffey Edison 

TWR 2:00pm- 3:20pm 

Course description: Examines the significance of race, class, gender, sexualtiy and places as expericende and articulated in the literature of Black Women of the African Disapora. 

 

 

Spring 2023 Course Offerings

Introduction Courses 

 

BLST 3 " Introduction to African American Studies" with Prof. Akudinobi

TR 9:30am-10:45am

Course Description: A survey of the subject matter, themes and methods of African Sudies. While breifly surveying the prehistory and early statess of Africa. The course focuses on the cultre and socitey of the colonial and independence eras 

 

BLST 38 A "Introduction to African American Literature (part 1)" with Prof. Brown 

TR 11:00am- 12:15pm

Course Description: African- American literature from colonial times through the Harlem Reniassance

 

BLST 49C " Survey of African History" with Prof. Miescher

TR 5:00pm-6:15pm

Course Description: 1945 to present. History 49 A-B-C is a general survey course designed to introdue stuents to major themes in African history. The course focuses on colonialism and decolonization, nationalism and self-liberation, development and neocolonialism, Cold War contexts, as well as African experiences of independence and the everyday in our contemporary, global world. Weekly discussion sections are an important feature of this course, enabling students to develop and expand upon material presented during lecture.

* This class is cross- listed with HIST-49C*

 

Upper Division Courses

 

BLST 126 " Comparative Black Literatures" with Prof. Strongman

TR 12:30pm-1:45pm

Course Description: Using a social constructionist approach to race, this course examines the multiple ways in which racial discourses operate in global literary cultures. It emphasizes that blackness need not be a homogeneous concept in order to continue to be a powerful agent in postmodern world.

 

BLST 128 " The Black Experience in Southern California " with Prof. Flowers

MW 8:00am-9:15am

Course Description: An interdisciplinary examination of the history, culture, economic conditions, policy debates, and social movements of Blacks in Southern California from 1781 to present. Music, literature, film, autobiography, and social theory are used to analyze the processes of regional and racial transformation. 

 

BLST 130B " The Black Francophone Novel" with Prof. Strongman

TR 3:30pm- 4:45pm

Course Description: A study theoretical and literary discourses of decolonization that appeared somultaneously in Africa and the West Indes after the Second World War. Writers studied include Mongo Beti, Camara Laye, Aime Cesaire, Ferdinand Oyono, Miriam Warner-Viegyra, Maryse Conde, and Aimone Schwartz-Bart. 

 

BLST 133 " Gender and Sexuality in Black Studies" with Prof. Wooten

MW 3:30pm-4:45pm

Course Description:  Examines the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, and class in creating disadvantage and advantage. In examining how racism, sexism, and heterosexism shape Black life chances in a 21st century context, this course focuses on systems of oppression that exist within and outside Black communities.

 

BLST 171 " Africa in Film" with Prof. Akudinobi

TR 8:00am-9:15am

Course Description: Explores with examples from dominant ( Hollywood) cinema and African cinema, what the sample films show about the relationship between ideology and representation, especially the reference points through which Africa functions as a site of complex and conflicting meanings.

 

BLST 172 " Contemporary Black Cinema" with Prof. Aguera 

MW 9:30am- 10:45am

Course Description: The course explores the new directions in African-American cinema with emphasis on the directors, the aesthetics and the social content of contemporary Black film. The problems of producion, distribution and exhibition will be examined

 

BLST 180 " Capstone Seminar" with Prof. Wooten

MW 12:30pm-1:45pm

Course Description: Capstone seminar for minors designed to strengthen students' reasoning, writing and research skills, as well as highlight how the Black Studies minor will enhance their major degree(s)

 

BLST 190C/CH " Honors and Senior Thesis" with Prof. Alves

WF 2:00pm- 3:15pm

Course Descriptions: Focus on continuing analysis and data discussion and completing the senior thesis.

Focus on continuing analysis and data discussion completing the senior honors thesis, and preparing to present an academic paper at the departmental Spring Colloquium for earning distinction (honors) in the major

 

BLST 191A " Special Topics in Black Studies" with Prof. Day

WF 11:00am-12:15apm

Course Description: Designed to broaden opportunites for students by offering topics related to the Black experience 

 

BLST 191 BB " Special Topics in Black Studies" with Prof. Brown

TR 2:00pm-3:15pm

Course Desciption: Designed to broaden opportunities for students by offering varying topics related to the Black experience but not a part of the formal curriculum. Examples might be the Afro-American soldier. Afro-American folklore; Afro-American art or drama

 

BLST 194C " Ethnic Studies Teacher Education Seminar" with Prof. Zarate

W 5:00pm- 6:15pm

Course Description: Designed for students who are Black Studies, Chicana/o Studies, Asian American and/ or Feminist Studies majors in the EXITO program. Central to the year-long seminar will be preparations for students' pursuit for a career as K-12 Ethnic Studies educators. Students will have direct assistance for preparing and applying to Masters/Teacher education Programs as well as Professionalization workshops

 

Winter 2023 Course Offerings

Introduction Courses: 

BLST 3 " Introduction to African American Studies" with Prof. Wooten

MW 12:30pm- 1:45pm

Course Description:  Explores historical and current social conditions of Black People in the United States. Topics include the following: origins of Black Studies; chattel slavery and resistance; Reconstruction; Jim Crow segregation; Harlem Renaissance; Black Nationalism; structural racism and anti-Blackness; Civil Rights and Black Power Movements; racial wealth gap; critical race theory and Neo-liberalism; carcerality and the prison industrial complex; white privilege and rage; and the intersection of race, gender, class, and sexuality in shaping Black identity and life chances. As a 5 unit course, BLST 1 is reading and writing intensive, with a focus on developing research skills through a Black Studies lens.

 

BLST 2  "Black Globalization" with Prof. Alves

TR 8:00am-9:15am

Course Description: Explains the process of Globalization from the XV Century - when the very concept of race appeared in discourse - to the present through the lenses of the Black experience. The texts, films and lecture presentations counter the historiographical erasure of people of African descent in the making of the Modern World, foregrounds the critical role that Black subject played in both the Old and New Worlds and postulates that Globalization could not have ever taken place without their contributions.

 

BLST 4" Critical Introduction to Race ad Racism" with Prof. Day

WF 2:00pm-3:15pm

Course Description: Examines historical and contemporary manifestations of racism and anti- racism, as well as theoretical approaches to understand the social, cultural, political and economic aspects of race.

 

BLST 7 "Introducation to Caribbean Studies" with Prof. Tinsley

TR 11:00am-12:15pm

Course Description: A survey of the culture and society of the Caribbean. After surveying Amerindian communities and examining the impact of the Atlantic slave trade, focus will be on slavery, emancipation, African and Creole cultures, and the issues accompanying an independent nationhood status. 

 

BLST 49B "Survey of African History" with Prof. Chikowero

TR 9:30am-10:45am

Course Description: 1800- 1945. History 49-A-B-C is a general survey course designed to introduce students to major themes in African History. The course focuses on African civilizations and identities, European colonial conquests, governance and colonial economies, African resistance and engagement with global capitalism. Weekly discussion sections are an important feature of this course, enabling students to develop and expand upon material presented during lecture. 

 

Upper Division Courses

BLST 117 " Slavery and Modernity" with Prof. Alves

TR 5:00pm- 6:15pm

Course Description:  An interdisciplinary examination of Black slavery as both a historical event and an enduring condition. The course highlights the foundational role of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade in the making of European modernity, the white subject of rights and the black dispossessed nonbeing, liberal democracy, and contemporary regimes of black captivities. Special focus is given to the political and economic history of the United States, the Caribbean and Brazil as slavocracies and to the incomplete project of emancipation that renders Black citizenship at best elusive. Critical transnational perspective highlights the spatio-temporal continuum between plantation regimes and contemporary global racial apartheid.

 

BLST 118  "Comparative Rebellion" with Prof. Arguera

MW 9:30am- 10:45am

Course Description: Examines key events in Brown/ Black resistance and rebellion in the U.S and the Borderlands. Using primary and secondary sources, the course emphasizes parallel rebellions, transnational revolutionary thought, and cross-racial alliances. 

 

BLST 136 " Black Feminist Thought" with Prof. Day

WF 9:30am-10:45

Course Description: Examines past and contemporary scholarship in Black feminist thought. By examining the intervention of Black feminist thought within mainstream feminist theory and the field of Black Studies, this course presents a critical examination of the theoretical and practical contributions of Black feminist scholars

 

BLST 137E "Black Family Community and Society" with Prof. Flowers

MW 8:00am- 9:15am

Course Description: Sociological overview of the experiences of Black families in the United States from enslavement to more contemporary eras. Sociological analysis of the changing historical significance of Black families in the United States will be presented 

 

BLST 138 "African Religions in the Americas" with Prof. Siwaju 

MW 11:00am- 12:15pm

Course Description: A study of Neo- African relihions in the Americas, with special emphasis on Haitian Vodou. Belieds, myths, philosophical dynamics are examined in various contemporary religious communities. Women's roles and sexuality issues are also explored. 

 

BLST 151 "Gender, Sexuality and African Cinema" with Prof. Akudinobi 

TR 9:30am- 10:45am

W 5:00pm- 7:50pm

Course Description: Critical explorations of aesthetic, narrativem thematic, ideological, cultural and interdisciplinary configurations which frame representations of femininities, masculinities, and sexualities in African cinema. The complex dynamics between art and society issues of identity, difference, agency, resistance and change, will be explored 

 

BLST 152 "Music of the African Diaspora" with Prof. Akudinobi 

TR 8:00am- 9:15am

Course Description: A survey of select African derived musical traditions form the Caribbean, North and South America, and Africa

 

BLST 155 "Dreams and Conflicts: Black Visual Culture" with Prof. Jones 

TR 8:00am- 9:15am

Course Description: Enables students to think critically about how visual politics have shaped the landscape or race, how visual arts are relates to other expressions of culture, such as music, theatre, and dance, and how Black artists have embodied and contested regimes of racial knowledge anchored in the vizualization of Blackness.

 

BLST 190B/ BH  "Honors/ Senior Thesis Seminar in Black Studies" with Prof. Wooten

MW 3:30pm- 4:45pm 

Course Description: Focus on methor/ methodology, data collection and initial analysis of data

 

BLST 194B "Ethnic Studies Teacher Education Seminar" with Prof. Zarate

W  5:00pm-6:15pm

Course Description: Designed for students who are Black Studies, Chicana/o Studies, Asian American and/or Feminist Studies majors in the EXITO program. Central to the year-long seminar will be preparations for students pursuit for a career as K-12 Ethnic Studies educators. Students will have direct assistance for preparing and applying to Master/ Teacher Education Programs as well as prodessionalization workshops.

 

Summer 2022 Course Offerings

Introduction Courses:

BLST 3 "Introduction to African Studies" with Dr. Jude Akudinobi

MTW 8:00am-9:25am

Course Description: A survey of the subject matter, themes, and methods of African Studies. While briefly surveying the prehistory and early states of Africa, the course focuses on the culture and society of the colonial and independence eras.

Upper-Division Courses:

BLST 124 "Housing, Inheritance, and Race" with Professor Stephanie Arguera

MTW 12:00pm-1:20pm

Course Description: Housing discrimination systematically skews opportunities and life chances in the United States across racial lines. This course examines the origins and evolution of fair housing laws, and the role that housing plays in asset accumulation, inheritance, and wealth.

BLST 126 "Comparative Black Literature" with Dr. Jude Akudinobi

MTW 9:30am-10:55am

Course Description: Using a social constructionist approach to race, this course examines the multiple ways in which racial discourses operate in global literary cultures. It emphasizes that blackness need not be a homogeneous concept in order to continue to be a powerful agent in the postmodern world.

BLST 174 "From Plantations to Prisons" with Professor Jaime Alves

WRF 11:00am-12:20pm

Course Description: Provides a critical perspective on current patterns of policing and mass incarceration in the United States and beyond. The course examines the historical roots and ideological justifications for police and prison and how notions of crime and order shape the ways we understand and justify and justify anti-Black policing policies. Focuses on fighting-crime strategies (such as one-strike, zero tolerance and the war on drugs) and their deepening of social vulnerabilities along gender, race, sexuality and class lines. Engages with abolitionist responses to neoliberal carcerality and its prison industrial complex.

Spring 2022 Course Offerings

Introduction Courses:

BLST 2 “Black Globalization” with Professor Jaime Alves

M W 2:00pm-3:15pm

Course Description: Explains the process of Globalization from the XV Century - when the very concept of race appeared in discourse - to the present through the lenses of the Black experience. The texts, films and lecture presentations counter the historiographical erasure of people of African descent in the making of the Modern World, foregrounds the critical role that Black subject played in both the Old and New Worlds and postulates that Globalization could not have ever taken place without their contributions.

BLST 49B “Survey of African History” *

T R 9:30am-10:45am

Course Description: History 49-A-B-C is a general survey course designed to introduce students to major themes in African history. The course focuses on African civilizations and identities, European colonial conquests, governance and colonial economies, African resistance and engagement with global capitalism. Weekly discussion sections are an important feature of this course, enabling students to develop and expand upon material presented during lecture.

*This course is cross-listed with HIST49B

Upper-Division Courses:

BLST 101C “Teaching for Social Justice” with Professor Adanari Zarate

M W 3:30pm-4:45pm

Course Description: This interdisciplinary course will highlight how a curriculum focusing on racial, ethnic, gender, and LGBTQ studies is central to teaching and learning within diverse societal contexts. This grounding is essential for K-12 teachers in History and English/Literature. Through a social justice framework, students will learn how classrooms are enhanced by Ethnic and Feminist Studies, placing graduates within the forefront of educational initiatives that position teaching and learning within an inclusive and equitable paradigm.

BLST 106 “Women and Politics of the Body” with Professor Omise’eke Tinsley

T R 11:00am-12:15pm

Course Description: Examines the relationship between race and gender in the construction of bodily politics that include perceptions of beauty and femininity. In understanding how race and gender matter in conceptualizations of beauty, this course centers Black women's bodies as important sites of resistance.

BLST 117 “Slavery and Modernity”

M W 5:00pm-6:15pm with Professor Jaime Alves

Course Description: An interdisciplinary examination of Black slavery as both a historical event and an enduring condition. The course highlights the foundational role of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade in the making of European modernity, the white subject of rights and the black dispossessed nonbeing, liberal democracy, and contemporary regimes of black captivities. Special focus is given to the political and economic history of the United States, the Caribbean and Brazil as slavocracies and to the incomplete project of emancipation that renders Black citizenship at best elusive. Critical transnational perspective highlights the spatio-temporal continuum between plantation regimes and contemporary global racial apartheid.

BLST 133 “Gender and Sexuality in Black Studies” with Professor Terrence Wooten

T R 12:30pm-1:45pm

Course Description: Examines the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, and class in creating disadvantage and advantage. In examining how racism, sexism, and heterosexism shape Black life chances in a 21st century context, this course focuses on systems of oppression that exist within and outside Black communities.

BLST 153 “Black Popular Music in America” with Professor Omise’eke Tinsley

T R 2:00pm – 3:15pm

Course Description: A critical survey of African-American popular styles since 1950. The course is style specific but also addresses the music's relationship to other aspects of popular culture.

BLST 171 “Africa in Film” with Dr. Jude Akudinobi

T R 8:00am-9:15am

Course Description: Explores, with examples from dominant (Hollywood) cinema and African cinema, what the sample films show about the relationship between ideology and representation, especially the reference points through which Africa functions as a site of complex and conflicting meanings.

BLST 172 “Contemporary Black Cinema” with Professor Stephanie Arguera

M W 9:30am-10:45am

Course Description: The course explores the new directions in African-American cinema with emphasis on the directors, the aesthetics and the social content of contemporary Black film. The problems of production, distribution, and exhibition will be examined.

For Majors and Minors:

BLST 180 Capstone Seminar for Minors with Dr. Jude Akudinobi

T R 9:30am-10:45am

Course Descriptions: Capstone seminar for minors designed to strengthen students' reasoning, writing, and research skills, as well as highlight how the Black Studies minor will enhance their major degree(s)

BLST 190C/CH Senior Thesis Seminar / Honors Seminar with Dr. Ingrid Banks

T R 3:30pm-4:45pm

Course Descriptions: Focus on continuing analysis and data discussion and completing the senior thesis.

Focus on continuing analysis and data discussion, completing the senior honors thesis, and preparing to present an academic paper at the departmental Spring Colloquium for earning distinction (honors) in the major.

Winter 2022 Course Offerings

As Megan Thee Stallion’s tongue-in-cheek question suggests, creative expressions of Black sexuality—especially Black women’s declarations of erotic autonomy—are always already marked as deviant, at once too much and not enough. Too many African Ameri- can teens have babies and too many Jamaicans are homophobic, not enough Black women get married and not enough Caribbean men are monogamous: rooted in the fic- tions of chattel slavery, these sexual scripts continually confront African American and Caribbean folks’ attempts to use our bodies as if (in Megan’s words) they “belong to” us.

Course description: This course explores how creative Black sexual expressions pressure, explode, and re- configure dominant formulations of gender and sexuality throughout the African Ameri- cas. We engage texts that explore historical and contemporary sexualities in the Carib- bean, South America, and North America, and represent (inter)disciplines including an- thropology, literature, history, feminist studies, queer studies, and cultural studies. Through these engagements, we explore how Black sexualities form in relation to acts of domination and/or resistance, injury and/or creativity, subjugation and/or pleasure.

See syllabus here: /sites/default/files/sitefiles/BLST%20206%20Syllabus.pdf

** This is a GRADUATE course for graduate students, however undergraduate enrollment may be considered for Black Studies Seniors whose projects are on a related topic, especially those who are applying to graduate school and want to see what a graduate seminar is like. Please contact Professor Tinsley, omiseeketinsley@blackstudies.ucsb.edu

 

Please Contact Theresa Rodriguez (Theresarodriguez@blackstudies.ucsb.edu) if interested in the courses.