Equivalency Evaluation

An interdisciplinary introduction to African American Studies that combines the teaching of core thinkers, concepts, and debates in the field with instruction in critical reading and writing. After exploring the field's institutionalization in US higher education, students engage foundational texts in African American Studies such as works by Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Toni Morrison, the Combahee River Collective, Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin. After taking this course, students should emerge with rich and textured insights into African American history, thought, and culture that provides them with critical lenses for analyzing contemporary social issues impacting African Americans.

The course focuses on: 1) the history, development, and internal structure of African-American communities as a unique social type in American Society; and 20 the ways in which these communities have shaped African-American identity. The course explores the assumption that African-American Communities have been shaped by a particular set of historical circumstances. Within these communities, autobiographical, generational, and ancestral memories of those events inform racial/ethical identity. Prerequisite: C or better in Soci 101 or departmental approval. Three semester hours.