CERTIFICATES IN BLACK STUDIES
Currently, the Department of Black Studies offers four Certificates in the concentration fields of Law & Society, Health & Wellness, Music & Performance and Black Queer & Trans Studies. To earn a certificate, students must fill out and submit the certification request form online and arrange a meeting with the Black Studies Undergraduate Adviser. Courses can be taken anytime, depending on the Department offerings, until student graduation. Certificate is issued by the Department of Black Studies upon student graduation from UCSB.
LAW, RACE & SOCIETY
UCSB has a long history of ground-breaking social justice activism, including the 1968 North Hall takeover that established Black Studies and the 1969 protests against the Santa Barbara Oil Spill that initiated the Environmental Justice Movement. This certificate offers students historical and contemporary perspectives on law, race, and social justice in the United States and beyond. It prepares students for an intersectional approach to current critical issues around law enforcement, human rights, antiblack violence, and broader geopolitics of war and security.
Under this certificate, our faculty offers educational training and real-world experience to students interested in further pursuing career-driven Law, Forensic Sciences, and Criminal Justice degrees.
COURSE OFFERINGS:
BL ST 1: Introduction to African American Studies
BL ST 109: Empire: Geopolitics of Race
BL ST 129: Black Cities - Politics of Place, Power and Resistance
BL ST 117: Slavery & Modernity
BL ST 174: From Plantations to Prisons: Policing, Carcerality & Abolition
HEALTH, WELLNESS & BLACKNESS
This certificate draws on Black faculty’s resolutely interdisciplinary scholarship to provide students with an innovative approach to public health and social wellness. As COVID-19 has exposed structural inequalities in accessing health care, and everyday antiblack racism exposes 'syndemic’ conditions that shorten Black LGBTQ people’s lives, we train students on how to critically engage with environmental, psychosocial, and physical harms and wellness promotion from an intersectional perspective. Based on a holistic approach to wellness, we explore alternative practices of community care in response to health disparities and other micro/macro racial aggressions against the Black community. Students will learn from Black women-centered bodily politics of healing, redressing racial trauma, and organizing for social justice. Students interested in complementing professional training in Public Health, Biology, Environmental Sciences, and Geography are particularly encouraged to enroll.
COURSE OFFERINGS:
BL ST 106 – Women, Wellness and Politics of the Body
BL ST 146 – Black Performance: Practices, Histories, and Genres
BL ST 15 - African American Psychology
BL ST 154 - Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice
BL ST 160 – Race, Health and Science in the United States
BLACK MUSIC & PERFORMANCE
Black Studies faculty produce award-winning scholarship in Black Music and Performance. Students earning this certificate learn from a rich repertoire of African Diaspora music and dance, preparing them for careers in the entertainment industry, education, and the performing arts. Courses curricula combine media studies methodology and Black feminist theory to offer students a critical overview of the cultural industry, its racialized/gendered/sexualized underpinnings in a global perspective. Centered around the African, Caribbean, North, and South American traditions, it examines the social and cultural context in which Black music (including folk, religious, popular, and classical music forms) emerged in response to racial terror. Students will also explore cultural global marketing of rap music, break dancing, graffiti, Bboying, DJing, fashion, etc.
COURSE OFFERINGS:
BL ST 14 - The History of Jazz
BL ST 143 - Hip-Hop: Poetics, Culture & Protest
BL ST 152 - Music of the African Diaspora
BL ST 153 - Black Feminism and Popular Music
BLACK QUEER AND TRANS STUDIES
As UCSB becomes a hub for scholars working within LGBTQ Studies, Black Studies has emerged as a national leader in Black Queer and Trans Studies. Students earning this certificate take courses that encourage them to think about how Black Feminism, Black Queer Studies, and Black Trans Studies intersect with one another and transform Black Studies as a whole, preparing them to work in education, politics, public health, the arts, and activism.
COURSES OFFERINGS:
BL ST 153 - Black Feminism and Popular Music
BL ST 125 - Queer Black Studies
BL ST 133 - Gender and Sexuality in Black Studies
BL ST 136 - Black Feminist Thought
